Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 10.50.49
Blended reading (Sanskrit + English inline)
-
durgam
—
a fortress
Same word as v.48. Now actualised. Word-repetition across verses 48 and 49 marks the bridge between Kṛṣṇa's plan and its execution — Bhagavān's saṅkalpa requires no intermediate effort; intention and accomplishment are the same act.
-
dvādaśa-yojanam
—
twelve yojanas
Compound: dvādaśa (12) + yojana. Roughly 96 miles diameter (1 yojana ≈ 8 miles). Twelve is a Vedic completeness-number (12 ādityas, 12 months). The city's size is itself iconographic.
-
samudre
—
in the sea
Locative of samudra (ocean). Antaḥ samudre — 'within the sea.' Not on an island but within it — the sea makes way, withdrawing for the Lord. Gauḍīyas compare: the ocean serves Kṛṣṇa's bed in Kṣīrodakaśāyī form; it serves His city here in the same servant-mood.
-
adbhutam
—
wonderful
Adbhuta-rasa territory — the rasa of wonder. The whole city is a manifestation of adbhuta. In Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu adbhuta is one of the secondary rasas; here the entire dhāma drips it.
-
acīkarat
—
He had made / He caused to be made
Causative aorist of √kṛ. The Lord causes Viśvakarmā to build — Bhagavān commands; the divine architect serves. Even creation, in this verse, runs along the same Lord-servant axis as the rest of līlā.
He built a fortress within the ocean measuring twelve yojanas. Eight yavas equals one angula. Twelve angulas make one tala. Three talas make one hasta. Two hasta make on kisku. Two kiskus make one dhanu. Two thousand dhanus make one krosa. Two krosas make one yojana. Within the fort, Krsna built a city.
The city measured twelve yojanas within the sea. Its outer portions measured eighteen yojanas according to other sources. Thus it was thirty yojanas in diameter. aṣtābhir yavamadhye syāḍ aṅgulaṁ dvādaśāṅulam tālam tri-tālako hasto hastua dvau kiṣkur ucyate kiṣku-dvayam dhanuḥ prokaṁ dhanuso dv-isahasrakam krośaḥ krośau tu gavyutir gavyutī dve tu yojanam Eight yavas equals one aṅgula. Twelve aṅgulas makes one tāla. Three tālas makes a hasta. Two hastas makes one kiṣku. Two kiṣkus make a dhanu. Two thousand dhanus is a krośa. Two krośas make a gavyuti. Two gavyutis makes a yojana. He had Viśvakarmā make the city in which all objects were astonishing.
- Where could withdrawal become creative rather than defeated?
- What 'city' might emerge from a strategic retreat in your life?
Having consulted Balarāma, Bhagavān has a fortress twelve yojanas wide constructed within the sea, and inside it a city full of every wonder. The ocean — Kṛṣṇa's own bed in His Kṣīrodakaśāyī form — yields a portion of its surface to receive His new capital. The Lord's home rests on the Lord's own body.
SB 11.30–31 narrates that after the Yadu-kula's destruction and Kṛṣṇa's withdrawal, the ocean reclaimed Dvārakā — the city Viśvakarmā built returns to the waters that hosted it. Marine archaeology off the Gujarati coast at modern Dwarka has produced submerged stone structures that Vaiṣṇavas associate with this account.
Gauḍīya commentators read the rising-and-submerging together: Dvārakā emerges from the sea for the duration of mānuṣa-līlā and returns to the sea when that līlā is complete. The dhāma itself is eternal; only its manifestation on the gross plane is timed.
My note
Source: vedabase.io