10.49 · Akrūra's Mission in Hastināpura

• hāstina-puram — to Hastināpura
  The Kuru capital — site of the dharma-saṅkaṭa that will erupt at Kurukṣetra. From this verse onward, Canto 10 begins braiding the Vraja-narrative into the Mahābhārata arc Sūta has been preparing since Canto 1.
• paurava-indra — of the rulers of the dynasty of Pūru
  Compound: paurava (descendant of Pūru) + indra (chief). Locates Hastināpura within the lunar dynasty into which Kṛṣṇa Himself will intervene; the glory is real but, as the next verses show, no longer protecting dharma.
• āmbikeyam — the son of Ambikā (Dhṛtarāṣṭra)
  Matronymic — Dhṛtarāṣṭra is named through his mother because his blind birth is the karmic root of the whole tragedy. Vyāsa's framing reminds the hearer that the throne is held by one whose vision was compromised from conception.
• pṛthām — Pṛthā (Kuntī)
  Vasudeva's sister, Kṛṣṇa's paternal aunt. Her name anchors the family-tie between the Pāṇḍavas and the Lord — by blood and by śaraṇāgati, as her prayer in 1.8 will later show.
• pāṇḍavān — the sons of Pāṇḍu
  First mention of the five brothers inside Canto 10. They appear here not as warriors but as endangered cousins surrounded by Karṇa, Duryodhana, Aśvatthāmā — the asuric coalition Kṛṣṇa is already weighing.

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• Where do you skip greeting some parties when undertaking a difficult mission?
• How could thorough courtesy actually improve your access to information?

Hastināpura is a court ablaze with Pūru-glory yet hollow at its center — like a great lamp whose oil has soured. Akrūra, sent by Kṛṣṇa, walks into that hall as one ray of the Lord's gaze, surveying Bhīṣma, Vidura and Kuntī among the very men whose envy will burn the dynasty down.

• gāndinī-sutaḥ — Akrūra, son of Gāndinī
  Matronymic. Gāndinī was Śvaphalka's wife, said in the Purāṇas to bring rain to whatever country she entered — a fitting parentage for the man who carries Kṛṣṇa's grace into Hastināpura.
• bandhubhiḥ — with his relatives and friends
  Akrūra is bandhu both to the Yadus and, through Vasudeva–Kuntī, to the Pāṇḍavas. His mission works precisely because he is family on both sides of the coming war.
• suhṛt — of their dear ones
  Sat-hṛt — 'good-hearted one,' a friend who wishes well without expecting return. In Gītā 5.29 Kṛṣṇa names Himself the suhṛt of all beings; Akrūra here mirrors that mood at a human scale.
• avyayam — about their well-being
  Literally 'undiminished, imperishable.' The polite formula of inquiry carries an undertone Vyāsa exploits across this canto: only Kṛṣṇa's shelter is truly avyaya; the welfare of the Pāṇḍavas in Hastināpura is anything but.

• Whose inquiry after your welfare have you not reciprocated in years?
• Where could a two-way conversation replace a one-way report?

Akrūra greets each face in turn the way a careful gardener walks his rows — pausing at every plant to see which has been watered and which left to wilt. Beneath the politeness of news-exchange, his eye is already gathering the report he will carry back to Kṛṣṇa.

• duṣprajasya — whose sons were wicked
  Compound: duḥ (bad) + prajā (offspring). Dhṛtarāṣṭra's defining flaw in the Bhāgavata's eye is not blindness of the eye but of judgment toward his sons.
• alpa-sārasya — whose determination is weak
  Sāra is the inner pith; alpa-sāra is the man with no marrow of resolve. The Bhāgavatam diagnoses Dhṛtarāṣṭra here precisely as the political type Gītā 2.41 calls bahu-śākhā — split, branching, unable to hold one bhakti-anchored intention.
• khala-chanda-anuvartinaḥ — following the desires of mischievous persons
  Khala (rogue, here meaning Karṇa, Śakuni) + chanda (whim) + anuvartin (follower). A devastating compound: the king of the Kurus is reduced to a follower of his own retinue's worst impulses.
• vivitsayā — with the desire of finding out
  Desiderative of √vid (to know). Akrūra's months in Hastināpura are not idleness but jñāna-yajña on Kṛṣṇa's behalf — observing so that the Lord may act with full information.

• Where do you assume you understand a situation after one visit when months of observation are needed?
• What kind of patience does honest scouting require?

Akrūra stays on as a physician who lingers by the bedside not to chat but to read the pulse — the king's weakness, the sons' venom, the courtiers' whispers. Months pass; the diagnosis ripens into something Kṛṣṇa will need to hear plainly.

• praśraya — humility
  From pra + √śri (to lean toward, to take refuge). The Pāṇḍavas are not merely brave — they are bowed. Gauḍīyas mark praśraya as the soil in which śaraṇāgati grows; the citizens' anurāga is the natural fruit.
• prajā-anurāgam — the great affection of the citizens
  Anurāga = the river-like attachment that flows after (anu) its object. The same word the Gosvāmīs use for the mature stage of mādhurya-prema; here it names the love subjects spontaneously feel for the just.
• dhārtarāṣṭraiḥ — by the sons of Dhṛtarāṣṭra
  Patronymic plural — they are defined by their father's name precisely because they will never make a name on their own dharma. The Bhāgavatam withholds individuation from those who refuse it.
• gara-dāna — the giving of poison
  Gara = poison; dāna = giving — a black inversion of dāna-dharma. The Pāṇḍavas' enemies pervert the very category Akrūra himself embodies (dāna-pati, 26).
• apeśalam — unbecoming
  Negation of peśala (graceful, fitting). The word is mild on the surface but devastating in Sanskrit moral vocabulary — what is apeśala is what falls outside any frame of cultured conduct.

• Padaseva Pr SB 10-49-05 Oriya
  His Grace Padaseva Prabhu· Oriya

• Where in your circle is intolerance of others' virtue masquerading as something else?
• What of yourself do you not tolerate in others?

Kuntī and Vidura speak the way two witnesses unfold the same evidence — one through a mother's grief, one through a minister's records — and between them the whole poison-history of the Pāṇḍavas comes into Akrūra's hands like a sealed letter for Kṛṣṇa.

• bhrātaram — her brother
  Strictly speaking Akrūra is her cousin through the Vṛṣṇi line, but kinship-vocabulary in the Bhāgavatam expands warmly. Kuntī claims him as bhrātṛ because he is the only Yadu hand within reach.
• janma-nilayam — the home of her birth
  Mathurā — where she lived as Pṛthā before being adopted by Kuntibhoja and married to Pāṇḍu. Her exile from her natal home prefigures the deeper exile every jīva feels from Vraja.
• smarantī — remembering
  Present participle of √smṛ. Smaraṇa is one of the nine limbs of bhakti (SB 7.5.23); even Kuntī's homesick smaraṇa becomes, in the next verses, smaraṇa of Kṛṣṇa Himself.
• aśru-kalā-īkṣaṇā — whose eyes are flecked with traces of tears
  Aśru (tear) + kalā (trace, droplet) + īkṣaṇā (eyed). The compound paints a Gauḍīya icon: the bhakta whose eyes have not lost their composure but cannot hide that they have been bathed.

• What conversation are you holding off until the right family member visits?
• Where could confidentiality permit the words your usual setting forbids?

Kuntī draws Akrūra aside the way a captive bird, finding a window cracked open, presses close to the bars: this is her one chance to send a message home. The brother she addresses is also Kṛṣṇa's emissary, and her tears already know it.

• smaranti — do they remember
  Same root √smṛ as smaraṇa-bhakti. Kuntī's plaintive question quietly raises the doctrinal axis Canto 1's prayer (1.8.18–43) will resolve: bhakti is the technology of mutual remembrance between bhakta and Bhagavān.
• saumya — O gentle one
  From soma — moon-like, cool, calming. The address suits Akrūra, whose name (a-krūra, 'not-cruel') is the etymological promise of his gentleness; Kuntī recognises the rasa he embodies.
• sakhyaḥ — girlfriends
  Feminine plural of sakhi. Even in extremis Kuntī asks after her childhood companions — the Bhāgavatam preserves the human texture of her exile, which becomes the basis on which she will turn next to Kṛṣṇa.
• jāmayaḥ — women of the family
  The wider circle of female kin — sisters-in-law, daughters-in-law. Kuntī's grief is structured: she names the concentric rings of belonging that she has lost daily access to.

• Padaseva Pr SB 10-49-08 Oriya
  His Grace Padaseva Prabhu· Oriya

• Whose remembrance of you matters most, and have you asked after it?
• What names from your past would you want recalled if a messenger came?

Kuntī's question is the question of every exiled soul: am I still held in mind by the home I left? Like a daughter writing back to her village, she names every relation by category — parents, brothers, sisters, sakhīs — testing whether memory still flows both ways across the distance.

• bhagavān — the Supreme Lord
  Six opulences in full (ṣaḍ-aiśvarya). Kuntī applies the maximal title to her own nephew without contradiction — Gauḍīya theology insists this is no exaggeration but the precise truth Yaśodā and Kuntī alike intuit in their bhāva.
• śaraṇyaḥ — the giver of shelter
  Derived from śaraṇa (refuge) + suffix denoting fitness — 'the one who is rightly to be taken as shelter.' Kuntī is already framing the prayer that will reach its full form in verses 12–13 and again in 1.8.
• bhakta-vatsalaḥ — compassionate to His devotees
  Compound: bhakta + vatsala (affectionate as toward a calf — vatsa). The signature Gauḍīya name: Bhagavān is not merely powerful but tender, His parental reflex toward His devotees being the very evidence of His personhood.
• amburuha-īkṣaṇaḥ — lotus-eyed
  Amburuha (lotus, lit. water-born) + īkṣaṇa (eyes). The standard epithet for both Kṛṣṇa and Rāma — Kuntī's tears are already mirroring the petals she names.
• paitṛ-svasreyān — the sons of His father's sister
  Compound: pitṛ-svasṛ (father's sister) + ya. The exact kinship clause: Kuntī is Vasudeva's sister, so the Pāṇḍavas are Kṛṣṇa's paternal aunt's sons — and by Gauḍīya bhakti, His own.

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  His Grace Padaseva Prabhu· Oriya

• Where could you address Kṛṣṇa in both familial and ultimate terms at once?
• Whose memory of you in a particular role steadies you?

Kuntī moves from naming her human kin to naming her Lord — and the line between aunt and devotee blurs. She asks about Kṛṣṇa exactly the way the gopīs ask after Him in 10.47: 'Does He remember us?' — and the answer, both times, is that bhakta-vatsala forgets no one who has taken His shelter.

• vṛkānām — of wolves
  Vṛka — the predator of Vedic imagination, used here for the Kauravas. Mahābhārata uses the same metaphor for Duryodhana's circle, and the Bhāgavatam keeps it.
• hariṇīm — a doe
  Feminine of hariṇa (deer). Kuntī casts herself as the soft animal — vulnerable, alert, beloved of forest poets — and thereby underlines the asymmetry that only Kṛṣṇa's strength can correct.
• sāntvayiṣyati — will He console
  Future of √sāntv — to comfort with words. The Bhāgavatam loves this verb; Uddhava goes to Vraja for sāntvana, Kṛṣṇa Himself will come to Kuntī later for sāntvana. The very form names what bhakta-vatsala does.
• pitṛ-hīnān — deprived of their father
  Pāṇḍu died young in the forest. Kuntī's appeal is structured by the bhakti axiom that Kṛṣṇa is the father of the fatherless — a theme made explicit in her Canto 1 prayer.

• Padaseva Pr SB 10-49-10 Oriya
  His Grace Padaseva Prabhu· Oriya

• What specific 'arrival of Kṛṣṇa' would actually console you in your current trouble?
• Could imagining it precisely become its own prayer?

A doe ringed by wolves does not fight; she trembles and waits to be lifted out. Kuntī sees her own situation exactly: five fatherless boys, a court of predators, and one Govinda whose word alone can console.

• kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇa — O Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa
  Doubled vocative — the mantra-form of address. Caitanya Mahāprabhu's mahā-mantra centres on exactly this repetition; Kuntī here utters it spontaneously a yuga before Mahāprabhu would teach it as the yuga-dharma.
• mahā-yogin — possessor of the greatest spiritual power
  Yoga in the Bhāgavata's mouth is not posture but mastery — yoga-māyā, yoga-īśvara. Kuntī names Kṛṣṇa not as the perfect yogi but the Lord of all yoga, parallel to the closing line of the Gītā (yatra yogeśvaraḥ kṛṣṇaḥ).
• viśva-bhāvana — O protector of the universe
  Viśva (cosmos) + bhāvana (sustainer, the one who causes to be). Kuntī widens the address from family to cosmos in a single breath — and then immediately asks Him to protect this one family. The whole logic of personalist bhakti.
• prapannām — a surrendered lady
  Feminine perfect-passive participle of pra-√pad — to fall before, take refuge. The single most weight-bearing word in Vaiṣṇava soteriology; Kuntī claims the prapanna-status that Gītā 18.66 invites.
• govinda — O Govinda
  Go (cows, senses, earth, words) + vinda (one who finds, who gives joy). Kuntī picks the Vraja-name — not Vāsudeva, not Nārāyaṇa — at the moment of greatest need. The cowherd-name carries the most intimate śaraṇa.

• Padaseva Pr SB 10-49-11 Oriya
  His Grace Padaseva Prabhu· Oriya

• What stacked titles for Kṛṣṇa would you call in your overwhelm today?
• Where do you assume surrender is implicit when explicit speech is needed?

Kuntī's mouth opens and what comes out is no longer a niece's plea but the bhakta's own mantra: Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Govinda. The relational distance collapses — she is now standing where Gajendra stood when the crocodile held him.

• pada-ambhojāt — than the lotus feet
  Pada (foot) + ambhoja (lotus, water-born). The Gauḍīya emblem of refuge — the feet that Lakṣmī worships, that Brahmā received the Bhāgavatam from, that Bhakti as a personified force serves.
• mṛtyu-saṁsārāt — from death and rebirth
  Saṁsāra is not just 'the world' but the wheel of repeated death (mṛtyu). Kuntī names the actual disease, not the symptom of court-intrigue — and prescribes Kṛṣṇa's feet as the only āpavargika cure.
• āpavargikāt — which give liberation
  From apavarga — the cutting-off (varga) of saṁsāra. Kuntī's diagnosis is doctrinally complete: Kṛṣṇa's feet liberate not because they are powerful but because they are the actual destination saṁsāra was pointing toward all along.
• śaraṇam — shelter
  The root noun of śaraṇāgati. Repeated in 13 and famously in Gītā 18.66 (sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja). Kuntī uses it not as theory but as testimony — 'I see no other.'

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  His Holiness Bhanu Swami· English

• Where in your prayer do you leave room for alternative shelters that scripture has ruled out?
• Could you articulate the singular shelter with Kuntī's clarity?

Kuntī surveys every available shelter — kin, throne, citizens, dharma itself — and finds them all leaking. Only Kṛṣṇa's lotus feet remain dry land. Her conclusion has the calm of a sailor who has finally located the one island in a flooding sea.

• śuddhāya — to the pure
  From √śudh. Kṛṣṇa is śuddha not in the Advaitin sense of attribute-less but in the Vaiṣṇava sense of untouched by māyā — pūrṇa, complete, untainted even while playing as a cowherd.
• brahmaṇe — to the Absolute Truth
  Kuntī addresses Kṛṣṇa as Brahman — the impersonal-sounding term — and is making a precise Gauḍīya point: the same Person is Brahman, Paramātmā, Bhagavān (SB 1.2.11). She covers all three in this verse.
• parama-ātmane — to the Supersoul
  Para (highest) + mā (measure) + ātmā. Kṛṣṇa as the inner witness in every heart — including Duryodhana's. Kuntī signals that the Lord she begs for help is also the Lord seated already within the men persecuting her sons.
• yoga-īśvarāya — to the controller of pure devotional service
  Yoga here in the bhakti-yoga sense — the technology of approaching Bhagavān. Kṛṣṇa is its īśvara not merely its teacher; the Gītā's last word (yatra yogeśvaraḥ kṛṣṇaḥ) is already Kuntī's word.
• śaraṇam gatā — I have approached for shelter
  Past tense — the act of śaraṇa is declared done, not promised. In Gauḍīya śaraṇāgati theology this completion is decisive: prapatti is not a process to be perfected but a moment to be uttered.

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  His Grace Padaseva Prabhu· Oriya
• Padaseva Pr SB 10-49-13 Oriya - Part-01
  His Grace Padaseva Prabhu· Oriya

• Could you let your prayer move through register shifts naturally?
• Where do you stay in one mode when others would deepen the same prayer?

Kuntī's namaḥ is the bow that completes the prayer — five names of Kṛṣṇa offered in sequence like five flowers laid one by one at His feet. Each name is a different door into the same Lord, and she walks through them all in a single breath.

• anusmṛtya — remembering
  Anu (after, alongside) + smṛ. Continuous, settled remembrance — the smaraṇa that has matured into a steady state. The Bhāgavata uses this prefix to mark devotional smaraṇa as distinct from ordinary recall.
• jagat-īśvaram — the Supreme Lord of the universe
  Jagat (the moving cosmos) + īśvara (controller). Vyāsa places this title in apposition to 'Kṛṣṇa' so the reader cannot miss it: the boy of Vraja and the Lord of the universe are the same Person.
• prārudat — she cried loudly
  Pra + √rud (to weep). The intensive prefix turns ordinary weeping into the full-throated cry of viraha-bhakti — the same verb the gopīs use when Kṛṣṇa leaves for Mathurā (SB 10.39).
• prapitāmahī — the great-grandmother
  Vyāsa reminds Parīkṣit that Kuntī is his great-grandmother. The whole Bhāgavata exists because Parīkṣit's life was saved by Kṛṣṇa in the womb — and that lineage starts with this very Kuntī weeping in Hastināpura.

• Amal Bhakta Sw SB 10-49-14 - Dallas
  His Holiness Amal Bhakta Swami· English
• Bhanu Sw SB 10-49-14 - 2007-03-06
  His Holiness Bhanu Swami· 2007-03-06· English
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  His Holiness Bhanu Swami· English

• Where do you separate family grief and divine meditation that scripture lets coexist?
• Could weeping become part of meditation rather than its interruption?

Kuntī weeps the way the Yamunā rises during the rains — not in collapse but in fullness. Her grief is no longer over Hastināpura; it has become viraha for Kṛṣṇa Himself. The two streams have merged.

• sama-duḥkha-sukhaḥ — who shared distress and happiness
  Compound: sama (equal) + duḥkha + sukha. The technical mark of a true bhakta-friend; Gītā 12.13 lists it among the qualities Kṛṣṇa most loves. Akrūra is named with the exact phrase.
• mahā-yaśāḥ — most famous
  Vidura's epithet — his yaśas comes from his unwavering dharma-vision, not from rank. The Bhāgavata gives him this title because Kṛṣṇa Himself will later go to Vidura's house rather than Duryodhana's palace (Mahābhārata, Udyoga-parva).
• sāntvayām āsatuḥ — the two of them consoled
  Periphrastic perfect, dual number. The dual is doctrinally lovely: two devotees together console one devotee — sat-saṅga as the antidote to viraha.
• utpatti-hetubhiḥ — with explanations about the origins
  Utpatti (birth, arising) + hetu (cause). Devotional consolation in the Bhāgavata is not denial of grief but enlargement of context: see how Kṛṣṇa's hand has been there since the cause.

• Padaseva Pr SB 10-49-15 Oriya
  His Grace Padaseva Prabhu· Oriya

• What fact have you forgotten under distress that someone could remind you of?
• Where could you be the reminder for someone close to losing memory of grace?

Akrūra and Vidura stand on either side of Kuntī like the two banks of a swollen river, neither stopping its flow nor letting it spill — reminding her that her sons were born already as portions of the devas, that Kṛṣṇa's hand has been on this story from the womb.

• viṣamam — biased
  Literally 'uneven, unequal' — the opposite of sama. The Bhāgavata's verdict on Dhṛtarāṣṭra in one word: a king whose love for his own sons has destroyed his evenness toward all his subjects.
• putra-lālasam — ardently affectionate toward his sons
  Lālasā = obsessive longing. The very intensity that should have been redirected to Kṛṣṇa (as Yaśodā's vātsalya is) has instead been bent into partiality. Same emotional energy, opposite outcome.
• bandhubhiḥ — by well-wishing relatives (Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma)
  Bandhu literally means 'one who binds, who is bound to.' Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma are Hastināpura's true bandhus, but the message they send is precisely what Dhṛtarāṣṭra is least able to receive.
• sauhṛda-uditam — what had been said in friendship
  Sauhṛda (good-heartedness) + udita (uttered). The same root-mood (suhṛt) Kṛṣṇa claims as His relationship to all beings in Gītā 5.29. The brothers' message is framed not as politics but as friendship.

• Bhanu Sw SB 10-49-16 - Sadhana bhakti and Prema bhakti - 2007-03-02
  His Holiness Bhanu Swami· 2007-03-02· English

• Where do you avoid delivering a message to someone who would benefit from hearing it?
• How do you find courage for honest words to power?

Akrūra turns from the women's quarters to the throne room and speaks the message Kṛṣṇa entrusted to him, the way a careful courier hands over a sealed letter at exactly the right moment — neither too soon to be ignored nor too late to matter.

• vaicitravīrya — O son of Vicitravīrya
  Patronymic. Both Dhṛtarāṣṭra and Pāṇḍu were nominally Vicitravīrya's sons (begotten by Vyāsa through niyoga). Akrūra's address subtly reminds him: you and your brother share one father, so why split his sons?
• kīrti-vardhana — O you who increase the Kurus' glory
  Compound: kīrti (glory) + vardhana (increaser). A formal title that, given everything the chapter has just narrated, lands almost as gentle irony — Akrūra calls him to the role he is failing.
• bhrātari uparate — your brother having passed away
  Locative absolute, perfect tense. Uparata literally 'ceased, withdrawn.' The clause that justifies Dhṛtarāṣṭra's regency — and silently obliges him to protect his brother's sons.
• āsanam āsthitaḥ — have assumed the throne
  Āsana (seat) + ā-sthita (firmly seated). The throne is named as borrowed, not owned — Dhṛtarāṣṭra holds it because Pāṇḍu vacated it, a regency in trust for the next generation.

• Where could acknowledging another's title soften the truth that follows?
• How do you maintain civility while delivering accusation?

Akrūra opens not with rebuke but with formal honour — naming Dhṛtarāṣṭra's lineage, his late brother, his throne — the way a wise elder washes the foot before applying the salve. The respect is real, but every word also reminds the king that he sits where Pāṇḍu once sat.

• dharmeṇa — religiously
  Instrumental of dharma. Not 'with a religion' but 'by means of dharma' — protection of the earth is itself a sacrament when its instrument is dharma.
• śīlena — by good character
  Śīla = settled disposition. Akrūra teaches that subjects are won not by spectacle but by the king's everyday character. Bhakti-shastras name śīla as a precondition for serving Bhagavān (Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu lists it among saintly qualities).
• samaḥ — equally disposed
  Sama — the keyword of the whole counsel. Pre-figures Gītā 6.9 (sama-darśana) and Gītā 18.54 (samaḥ sarveṣu bhūteṣu). Equanimity here is not philosophical pose but political duty.
• śreyaḥ — perfection
  From √śri, the root of śaraṇa — that which one leans toward, the highest good. Distinguished in Vedānta from preyas (the merely pleasant); Akrūra is offering the king the choice the Kaṭha Upaniṣad already named.

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  His Holiness Bhanu Swami· 2007-03-07· English
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  His Holiness Lokanath Swami· 2012-09-10· English

• Which of dharma, conduct, equality do you most fail in your sphere of influence?
• Where could equal treatment of those you favor and disfavor become the work?

Akrūra holds up the picture of the ideal king the way a guru holds up a mirror to a student — not as accusation but as the form the listener could still grow into. Protect the earth, delight the citizens, weigh all relatives equally: three strokes of the brush, and the portrait of dharmic rule is complete.

• garhitaḥ — condemned
  Past participle of √garh — the censure of the wise. In the Bhāgavata's ethics, garhā by sādhus is itself a kind of punishment more weighty than law.
• tamaḥ — darkness (of hell)
  Tamas as the third guṇa and as the name of hellish destinations (andha-tāmisra etc.). Said to a blind king, the word carries a quiet sting: Dhṛtarāṣṭra's outer blindness will be matched by inner darkness if he refuses samatva.
• samatve — in equanimity
  Locative of samatva — the abstract noun from sama. The full Gauḍīya doctrine compresses here: outer fairness toward Pāṇḍavas and own sons is the political face of the inner sama-darśana the Gītā teaches.
• ātma-jeṣu — toward your sons
  Ātma-ja literally 'born from oneself.' Akrūra names the very fact (these are your own offspring) that Dhṛtarāṣṭra has weaponised — yes, they are yours, but the Pāṇḍavas are equally claims on you.

• Padaseva Pr SB 10-49-19 Oriya
  His Grace Padaseva Prabhu· Oriya

• Where do you treat 'this life' and 'next life' as if karma operated on only one?
• What single act of equal treatment could shift your trajectory?

Akrūra now turns the mirror's reverse face: the king who fails samatva will be cursed by men and find darkness after. The same Sanskrit word tamaḥ that names hell-realms also names what Dhṛtarāṣṭra's own eyes have always seen — and Akrūra makes the pun do its work without naming it.

• atyanta-saṁvāsaḥ — perpetual association
  Atyanta (without end) + saṁvāsa (dwelling-with). The compound that Buddhist and Vaiṣṇava ethics both reject — but the Bhāgavata names the impermanence not to nihilate relationships, only to relocate the eternal one to Kṛṣṇa.
• svena api dehena — even with one's own body
  The body itself, supposedly most 'our own,' is in fact a passing companion. Gauḍīya doctrine receives this through Gītā 2.13 — the dehin endures, the deha is borrowed.
• jāyā — with wife
  From √jan (to be born — 'she through whom one is reborn as a householder'). Akrūra names the dearest relations to make the point sharpest: even these end.
• ātma-ja-ādibhiḥ — children and so on
  Ātma-ja (offspring) + ādi (and the rest). Same word as in verse 19 — Akrūra is gently pulling Dhṛtarāṣṭra's defining attachment (my own sons!) into the frame of impermanence.

• Padaseva Pr SB 10-49-20 Oriya - Part-01
  His Grace Padaseva Prabhu· Oriya
• Padaseva Pr SB 10-49-20 Oriya - Part-02
  His Grace Padaseva Prabhu· Oriya
• BRasamritaSw SB 10-49-20-21 - In Transcendental Relationship there is no Termination - 2014-08-31 ISKCON Chowpatty
  His Holiness Bhakti Rasamrita Swami· 2014-08-31· English
• Bhanu Sw SB 10-49-20 - Being responsibe for our Actions and Reactions
  His Holiness Bhanu Swami· English

• Where do you organize your life around a fiction of permanent connection?
• How could honesty about impermanence soften your grip without ending love?

Even the body, the one possession we dragged into this life, will let go of us. Wife, children, throne — these were never even that close. Akrūra speaks the way a senior monk speaks to a man clutching sand: the grip itself is the trouble.

• ekaḥ — alone
  Repeated four times in the verse — Vyāsa is hammering the metric. The aloneness is not nihilist; in Gauḍīya reading it is the precondition for the truly non-alone relationship, with Kṛṣṇa as the only one who actually follows.
• prasūyate — is born
  Passive of pra-√sū — caused to come forth. The jīva does not choose the birth; one comes alone because the karmic stream is one's own.
• anubhuṅkte — enjoys as is due
  Anu (along, after) + √bhuj (to enjoy/suffer). The same root as bhoga; one anu-bhujti, undergoes, the consequences. No proxy can taste them for us.
• sukṛtam — good reactions
  Su (good) + kṛta (done) — pious deeds and their fruits. In bhakti-śāstra, only kṛṣṇa-related sukṛti accumulates toward śraddhā in the Lord (Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Madhya 22).

• RRDD SB 10-49-21 - Alone but not alone - 2024-01-19
  Her Grace Ratna Radhika Mataji· 2024-01-19· English

• Where do you assume that companions will absorb your karmic consequences?
• What does honoring individual karma mean for how you live with others?

We arrive in this world without an escort and leave the same way. The good and the bad we did walk beside us alone — like a single oil lamp accompanying a traveller through a long unlit corridor. No retinue follows us through that door.

• adharma-upacitam — gathered by irreligious means
  Upa-√ci — to heap up, accumulate. The Bhāgavata uses this verb for sinful accumulation specifically; the wealth grows not naturally but by repeated unrighteous act.
• alpa-medhasaḥ — of one of small intelligence
  Alpa (little) + medhas (intellect, sacrificial fire). Compound that puns: the man's intelligence is small because his sacrificial fire is small — he has invested in adharma not yajña.
• sambhojanīya-apadeśaiḥ — by the false designations of being supportable
  Compound: sambhojanīya (those who must be fed) + apadeśa (pretext). The 'dependents' for whose sake the sinful wealth was gathered are themselves often the thieves. A devastating diagnosis of householder delusion.
• jala-okasaḥ — of a resident of the water
  Jala (water) + okas (dweller). The fish whose own offspring drink the water that holds her — Vyāsa's compressed icon for parasitic family.

• Akuti Mataji SB 10-49-22-25 - 2014-09-17 ISKCON Alachua
  Her Grace Akuti Mataji· 2014-09-17· English
• Padaseva Pr SB 10-49-22 Oriya
  His Grace Padaseva Prabhu· Oriya
• Bhanu Sw SB 10-49-22-26 - Faith is the qualification of%20Bhakti not gunas - ISKCON Chennai
  His Holiness Bhanu Swami· English

• Where are you bankrolling someone whose interest in you is purely consumptive?
• How does this verse caution about whom you sacrifice for?

Sinful wealth is like the water around the unwary fish — it looks like home and turns out to be the very medium through which others will drain him dry. Akrūra paints the Mahābhārata's coming theft in a single aquatic image.

• sva-buddhyā — thinking them his own
  Sva (one's own) + buddhi (intellect). The whole error in one compound: it is not the things that fail him but the buddhi that called them sva. Echoes Gītā 2.71 on the renunciation of mama-buddhi.
• apaṇḍitam — uneducated
  Negation of paṇḍita. The Bhāgavata's paṇḍita is not the textually learned but the one who sees rightly (Gītā 5.18); the apaṇḍita is the man whose vision has been mortgaged.
• akṛta-artham — whose purposes are frustrated
  Compound: a (not) + kṛta (done) + artha (purpose). Even on his own terms — keeping the dependents fed — the project fails. The Bhāgavata closes every escape route from this argument.
• prāṇāḥ — life airs
  The Upaniṣadic plural — the five prāṇas. Listed together with wealth and children precisely so the reader sees the body itself in the same category: a temporary holding.

• Sarvabhauma Pr SB 10-49-23 - 2023-12-17 ISKCON Vrindavan
  His Grace Sarvabhauma Prabhu· 2023-12-17· English

• What sin are you currently protecting in order to preserve something that will leave you anyway?
• Where could honest renunciation save what attachment cannot?

The fool feeds and feeds — wealth, children, body — believing these to be his treasure. At the end, the very dependents he fed walk away, and the body itself walks away (its prāṇa departing), leaving him empty-handed at the threshold he prepared for no one.

• kilbiṣam — sinful reaction
  Vedic term for pollution incurred by transgression. The Bhāgavata insists that only this baggage actually transfers across death; everything 'his' falls away at the boundary.
• artha-kovidaḥ — knowing properly the purpose
  Compound: artha (goal/meaning) + kovida (one who knows well). The verse negates it (na) — the failure is precisely not knowing what the human birth was for.
• sva-dharma-vimukhaḥ — indifferent to one's own dharma
  Sva-dharma (one's own duty) + vimukha (face-turned-away). Echoes Gītā 3.35 — sva-dharma even imperfect surpasses para-dharma; the soul who turns away from his own duty walks into tamaḥ.
• andham — blind
  The very adjective Vyāsa attaches to the deepest hell-regions (andha-tāmisra, andha-tamas — Īśopaniṣad 3, SB 5.26). Said to a blind king, the word's sting is doubled: outer andha is one thing; the inner andha into which the unrighteous soul enters is far worse.

• Padaseva Pr SB 10-49-24 Oriya
  His Grace Padaseva Prabhu· Oriya
• Revati Raman Pr SB 10-49-24 - 2012-06-25 ISKCON Tirupati
  His Grace Revati Raman Prabhu· 2012-06-25· Telugu
• BKG SB 10-49-24 - The fallable soldiers - 2024-01-23 New Goloka
  His Holiness Bir Krishna Goswami· 2024-01-23· English

• Where is course-correction overdue in your life?
• What would you not want to enter the next world carrying?

The sinful soul leaves life like a porter shouldered with the bags everyone else has already unloaded — the dependents gone, the goal unrealised, only the karma still clinging to his back as he crosses into the dark.

• svapna-māyā-manaḥ-ratham — as a dream, a magic trick, or a fantasy in the mind
  Triple compound: svapna (dream) + māyā (illusion) + manas-ratha (mental chariot/daydream). The three classical Vaiṣṇava analogies for the apparent reality of saṁsāra, stacked. Gauḍīyas distinguish this from Advaitin niḥsvabhāva: the world is real but its possessability is illusory.
• āyamya ātmanā ātmānam — restraining the mind by intelligence
  Echoes Gītā 6.5–6 (uddhared ātmanātmānam) almost verbatim. Akrūra is quoting the Gītā's self-restraint formula into the political moment — the king's first conquest must be his own mind.
• samaḥ — equal
  Returns to the keynote of the counsel. Verses 18–25 are a teaching ring whose entrance and exit are both sama.
• śāntaḥ — peaceful
  From √śam (to cease, to be quieted). Śānta-rasa in Gauḍīya bhakti is the foundation rasa — the basic stilling without which the higher rasas cannot take root. Akrūra prescribes the floor on which Dhṛtarāṣṭra still has time to stand.

• Padaseva Pr SB 10-49-25 Oriya
  His Grace Padaseva Prabhu· Oriya
• SKP SB 10-49-25-26 - 2023-12-20 ISKCON Vrindavan
  His Grace Srutakirti Prabhu· 2023-12-20· English

• Where could 'this is a dream' actually loosen what is currently strangling you?
• What does daily reframing as illusion look like in practice?

See this whole court — sons, throne, intrigues — as a dream that will burst at dawn, a magician's illusion that will vanish when the hand is lowered, a daydream that will end when attention turns. Akrūra puts three different vanishings beside each other so Dhṛtarāṣṭra cannot escape the diagnosis.

• dāna-pate — O master of charity
  Title of Akrūra. Dāna-pati = lord of giving — Akrūra is named in tradition as a paragon of dāna-dharma, and Dhṛtarāṣṭra here recognises the office. Yet the dāna being given is verbal counsel, not gold.
• kalyāṇīm — auspicious
  Feminine of kalyāṇa — that which leads to well-being (śreyas). Dhṛtarāṣṭra correctly diagnoses the words; the tragedy of the next verse is that diagnosis is not the same as cure.
• amṛtam — the nectar of immortality
  The classical Vaiṣṇava metaphor for śabda-brahma. Even a blind king tastes that sad-upadeśa is amṛta — the Bhāgavata is gentle: the failure that follows is not a failure of recognition.
• na tṛpyāmi — I am not satiated
  Negative present of √tṛp (to be sated). Atṛpti — never-being-satisfied — is also the mark of kṛṣṇa-kathā in the Bhāgavata (1.1.19, naiṣātiduḥsahā kṣut). Dhṛtarāṣṭra brushes against the truth without grasping it.

• Dravida Pr SB 10-49-26-31 - 2014-09-18 ISKCON Alachua
  His Grace Dravida Prabhu· 2014-09-18· English
• BKG SB 10-49-26 - Good instruction makes a fool angry - 2024-01-25 New Goloka
  His Holiness Bir Krishna Goswami· 2024-01-25· English

• Where do you receive teaching with appreciation and not act on it?
• How is appreciation without action its own form of self-deception?

Dhṛtarāṣṭra drinks Akrūra's counsel like a dying man tasting amṛta — he knows it is exactly what is needed. But, as the next verse will reveal, he is the kind of vessel that will not hold what is poured in.

• sūnṛtā — pleasing and true words
  Vedic compound — words that are both sweet and truthful (a Ṛgveda virtue). Akrūra's speech is sūnṛtā in the technical sense, hence the more painful that Dhṛtarāṣṭra cannot retain it.
• hṛdi na sthīyate — do not remain steady in my heart
  Locative + passive — 'in the heart there is no standing.' The Bhāgavata's most poignant Sanskrit for the bhakta-failure mode: hearing without keeping. Pre-figures the diagnostic conversations Vidura will have with him.
• putra-anurāga-viṣame — prejudiced by affection for sons
  Triple compound: putra + anurāga (deep attachment) + viṣama (uneven). The exact opposite of sama (18, 19, 25). His own diagnosis exactly matches Akrūra's.
• vidyut saudāmanī — lightning in a cloud
  Vidyut (lightning) + saudāmanī (born of clouds). A doubled image — the same flash, named twice. The verse insists the brilliance is real and the impermanence is also real; both must be held together.

• Bhanu Sw SB 10-49-27-31 - Ultimately one%27s choice decides the outcome not the influences of Karma - ISKCON Chennai
  His Holiness Bhanu Swami· English

• Where are you self-aware about your prejudice without doing anything about it?
• What would 'fixing' the lightning look like for you?

Auspicious words land on his heart the way lightning lands on a passing cloud — bright for a moment, gone the next, the cloud already moving with its own wind. Dhṛtarāṣṭra confesses the simile against himself. He sees and still cannot hold.

• īśvarasya vidhim — the law of the Supreme Lord
  Vidhi here means injunction, decree — distinct from human vidhi-niṣedha. Dhṛtarāṣṭra invokes the highest causal layer, but uses the invocation as fatalist excuse rather than as śaraṇāgati.
• vidhunoti — can shake off
  Vi + √dhū (to shake). Active verb — to dislodge. Dhṛtarāṣṭra asks rhetorically: who can shake off Kṛṣṇa's plan? The answer the chapter implies: no one — and you might therefore align with it rather than against.
• bhāra-avatārāya — in order to diminish the burden
  Compound: bhāra (load) + avatāra (descent). The Bhāgavata's classical formula for Kṛṣṇa's appearance — the burden being the asuric weight on the earth. Same vocabulary as Gītā 4.7–8.
• yadoḥ kule — in the family of Yadu
  The Yadu-vaṁśa — descendants of King Yadu, son of Yayāti. Kṛṣṇa's choice of birth-family is doctrinally significant; the Yadu line carries the original blessing that the Lord would appear among them.

• BBBS SB 10-49-28-29 - 2023-12-21 ISKCON Vrindavan
  His Holiness Bhakti Brhat Bhagavata Swami· 2023-12-21· English

• Where do you cite cosmic will to excuse your own choices?
• How do you distinguish honest theology from convenient theology?

Dhṛtarāṣṭra raises his palms to the inevitability: who can push aside the Lord's decree? Kṛṣṇa Himself has descended into the Yadu family to lighten the earth's burden — and the burden is, in part, his own hundred sons. The king sees it, names it, and does nothing.

• durvimarśa-pathayā — whose path is inconceivable
  Compound: dur (hard) + vimarśa (reflection) + pathā (path). Kṛṣṇa's līlā cannot be traced by speculative reason; the Bhāgavata insists (1.1.1, janmādy asya yataḥ) that He is approachable only by paramparā and bhakti.
• nija-māyayā — by His own creative energy
  Nija (His own) + māyā. Crucially nija — the māyā belongs to Bhagavān, not the other way around. Gauḍīya doctrine guards this firmly: Kṛṣṇa is never under māyā even when He uses her.
• tat-anupraviṣṭaḥ — entering within it
  Anu (after) + pra (forth) + √viś. After projecting the universe, He enters as Paramātmā. Echoes Taittirīya 2.6 (tat sṛṣṭvā tad evānuprāviśat) — Dhṛtarāṣṭra is quoting the Upaniṣad almost verbatim.
• duravabodha-vihāra-tantra — whose pastimes' purport is unfathomable
  Triple compound: duravabodha (hard to grasp) + vihāra (play, sport) + tantra (the inner thread/plan). Vihāra is the technical Bhāgavata word for divine play — Dhṛtarāṣṭra concedes that Kurukṣetra itself will be part of that vihāra.
• parama-īśvarāya — to the supreme controller
  The final superlative — Kṛṣṇa as the Lord above all īśvaras. Dhṛtarāṣṭra's last word in this chapter is namaḥ — a praṇāma that does not become śaraṇāgati. The Bhāgavata records the gap.

• Where do your right words coexist with your wrong heart?
• How do you tell the difference between yourself and Dhṛtarāṣṭra?

Dhṛtarāṣṭra closes the conversation the only honest way left to him — with a praṇāma. He cannot bend his policy, but he can bend his head: the Lord whose pastimes he cannot fathom is at least the Lord whose feet he can name.

• abhipretya — ascertaining
  Abhi (toward) + pra + √i — to come to a settled understanding. Akrūra does not guess Dhṛtarāṣṭra's mood; he has read it precisely. The Bhāgavata's emissaries are diagnosticians, not couriers only.
• yādavaḥ — the descendant of Yadu
  Akrūra is named here by clan — emphasising that he carries Yadu-kula identity into both Hastināpura and Dvārakā, weaving the two cities together by his very person.
• samanujñātaḥ — given permission to leave
  Sam (together) + anu (after) + √jñā. Formal Sanskrit for the moment a guest is released by the host's consent. Even in a corrupted court Akrūra preserves the protocols — a Gauḍīya theme: bhaktas are courteous even where dharma has been violated.
• yadu-purīm — to the city of the Yadu dynasty
  Dvārakā. Kṛṣṇa's seat. The chapter ends by sending Akrūra back toward the city where the next phase of the līlā — the report — will land in the Lord's own ear.

• Where do you continue to push when the appropriate response is to take permission and leave?
• How do you discern when more conversation will only entangle?

Akrūra reads the room one more time, takes his leave with quiet ceremony, and turns his face back toward Dvārakā. The mission's outer shape is complete; the inner load — what Kṛṣṇa must be told about this court — rides home with him.

• śaśaṁsa — he reported
  Reduplicated perfect of √śaṁs — to praise, to recount, to declare. The same verb used for sages reporting to kings (e.g., Sūta to Śaunaka); Akrūra's debrief has the dignity of a sage-report.
• rāma-kṛṣṇābhyām — to Lord Balarāma and Lord Kṛṣṇa
  Dual instrumental — the two brothers receive the report together. Gauḍīya theology insists Balarāma is Kṛṣṇa's first expansion (svayam-prakāśa); the report goes to both because the response will be shared.
• dhṛtarāṣṭra-viceṣṭitam — the behavior of King Dhṛtarāṣṭra
  Compound: viceṣṭita = sustained activity, comportment. Not a single act but a pattern of conduct — what Akrūra has been observing for months (verse 4) is now compressed for the Lord.
• preṣitaḥ — sent
  Past participle of pra-√iṣ — to send forth. The mission opened with Kṛṣṇa sending Akrūra and closes with the noun preṣita — the whole chapter is enclosed within Kṛṣṇa's prerogative to send and receive.

• What service have you partially completed by leaving out the report-back?
• Where could a clear final report close a service that has been hanging?

Akrūra delivers his findings to Rāma and Kṛṣṇa the way a returning scout dismounts and gives the commander a single clean briefing — what was tested, what was seen, what the king's heart will and won't do. The Bhāgavata leaves the next move to Kṛṣṇa, where it has always belonged.