Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 10.30.17
Blended reading (Sanskrit + English inline)
-
kṛṣṇa-rāmāyite
—
acting like Lord Kṛṣṇa and Lord Balarāma
Compound denominative participle: kṛṣṇa + rāma (Balarāma) + denominative -āyita. The two brothers always paired in līlā; even a gopī cannot enact Kṛṣṇa without another gopī becoming Balarāma. Rasa demands the pair.
-
gopāyantyaḥ
—
acting like Their cowherd boyfriends
Denominative participle from gopa (cowherd boy). The sakhya-rasa companions of Kṛṣṇa — Śrīdāma, Subala, etc. — are honored by the gopīs in re-enactment. Vraja loves itself across rasas: mādhurya-gopīs taste sakhya in performance.
-
vatsāyatīm
—
imitating the calf demon
Denominative present participle from vatsa (calf), specifically Vatsāsura. The Bhāgavatam's vocabulary keeps generating denominatives — the gopīs are inventing rasa-grammar in real time.
-
bakāyatīm
—
imitating the crane demon
Denominative from baka (crane), referring to Bakāsura. The pair Vatsa-Baka is the standard first-pair of Kṛṣṇa's pauganda demon-slayings; the gopīs are working through His résumé.
Two gopīs took the roles of Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma and others took the roles of cowherd boys to enact herding the calves. Another pastime was then enacted in the group. One gopī took the role of Kṛṣṇa and enacted the killing of Vatsāsura. One other gopīs as Kṛṣṇa enacted the killing of Bakāsura.
Two gopīs took the roles of Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma and others took the roles of cowherd boys to enact herding the calves. The word ca indicates that a gopī also imitiated Aghāsura. Present tense is used to indicate that the event was not long ago.
- Whom in Kṛṣṇa's circle do I most overlook, and what might that relationship teach me?
- Who are my Balarāmas — the steady ones who walk alongside Kṛṣṇa in my life?
Two children sword-fighting in a yard — one is Rāma, one is Lakṣmaṇa, the brothers of the epic. The gopīs cast themselves as Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma, others as cowherd boys, others as the calf-demon and crane-demon — Vṛndāvana becomes a stage on which the entire bāla-līlā plays simultaneously, every role taken by love.
Vatsāsura took the form of a calf and mixed with the herd; Kṛṣṇa caught him by the hind legs and flung him into a tree (SB 10.11). Bakāsura, the crane-demon, swallowed Kṛṣṇa and was split open from inside (SB 10.11).
These were Kṛṣṇa's earliest demon-killings in pauganda-līlā with the cowherd boys. The gopīs re-enact them because the love-mad mind, robbed of saṁyoga, goes straight to the chapter of His childhood it most adores.
My note
Source: vedabase.io