Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 10.43.6
Blended reading (Sanskrit + English inline)
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kari-indraḥ
—
the lord of elephants
Kuvalayāpīḍa is called 'Indra of elephants' — a deliberate echo of Gajendra in SB 8.2–3, the elephant-king who surrendered to Viṣṇu. The contrast is sharp: one gaja-indra calls out to Hari and is delivered; this one charges Hari and is killed. The difference is only śaraṇāgati. A contiguous-token join of synonyms 'kari' and 'indraḥ'.
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vigalitaḥ
—
slipping away
Bhagavān cannot be held against His will; He is sarva-vyāpī yet asaṅga. The same slipping is what mother Yaśodā experiences in 10.9 with the rope — Kṛṣṇa is bound only by prema, never by force.
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alīyata
—
He disappeared
The verb of antardhāna — concealment. Throughout Canto 10 Kṛṣṇa appears and disappears at His pleasure (the rāsa-līlā, the calves and boys in 10.13). Here disappearance is a weapon: He cannot be seen because the demonic eye has no adhikāra to see Him.
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aṅghriṣu
—
among his legs
Locative plural — the Lord moves into the very space beneath the attacker. Devotionally: Kṛṣṇa makes Himself small enough to slip beneath demonic prowess, the same līlā-littleness Yaśodā saw in the mortar-and-rope episode.
Lord Kṛṣṇa struck the elephant with His fist and then disappeared among his legs.
With his trunk, the elephant seized the waist of Krsna, who was standing there fearlessly. Then Krsna struck the elephant on his trunk with his left fist, and the elephant released Krsna. Krsna disappeared between his four huge legs. First he would hide behind one leg, and when the elephant used his sense of smell to detect him, Krsna would hide behind another leg. In this way playful Krsna cheated the elephant in many ways and showed to the public his remarkable daring.
Kṛṣṇa allowed the elephant to grab him using his trunk, since Kṛṣṇa was capable of doing anything out of great curiosity. This will be understood later by the words līlayā and krīḍayā. He skilfully escaped (vi—galitaḥ) from the elephant, without putting his garland or cloth in disarray. This is explained later. He went between the elephant’s four legs and became invisible.
- Where could a strategic disappearance serve you better than head-on resistance?
- How does Kṛṣṇa's agility teach you something about engaging with bullies?
The elephant's trunk closes around empty air. The grip of māyā is always like this: it grasps the form of Kṛṣṇa and finds nothing in its coil because He has already slipped beneath. He strikes, He vanishes, He is between the legs of the very power that thought it held Him.
My note
Source: vedabase.io