Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 10.51.29
Blended reading (Sanskrit + English inline)
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deva-devānām
—
of the chief gods
Compound: deva + devānām (of the devas). The God-of-gods construction. Vaiṣṇava texts often telescope titles this way to point to Bhagavān as the deva-deva — the term Arjuna will use in Gītā 11.
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trayāṇām
—
of the three
Genitive plural — Brahmā, Viṣṇu, Śiva. The trimurti is named only to be transcended; Mucukunda places this Person above all three, anticipating the chapter's monotheistic resolution.
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puruṣa-ṛṣabham
—
the foremost of persons
Compound: puruṣa (Person) + ṛṣabham (bull, foremost). The same ṛṣabha-epithet given to Bhagavān in verse 22. Personalist language throughout: not 'highest principle' but 'foremost Person.'
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guha-dhvāntam
—
the darkness of the cave
Compound: guha (cave) + dhvāntam (darkness). Mucukunda makes the inner cave a metaphor: this Person, by being present, dispels the cave-darkness like a lamp. Gauḍīyas read this as Bhagavān's first sevā to the bhakta — bringing light into the heart's guha.
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pradīpaḥ
—
a lamp
From pra-√dīp — to blaze. The first homely image Mucukunda uses for Kṛṣṇa. The Bhāgavata permits and encourages such everyday analogies; bhakti's idiom is intimate before it is exalted.
Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī points out that with His effulgence Lord Kṛṣṇa dispelled not only the darkness of the mountain cave but also the darkness in Mucukunda’s heart. In Sanskrit the heart is sometimes metaphorically referred to as guha, “cavern,” a deep and secret place.
You illuminate the darkness of the cave with your lamp like effulgence, and you illuminate my mind covered in ignorance with jewel like knowledge.
In this verse he concludes that the person must be superior to all those previously mentioned. Among the three you are in the category of Viṣṇu, but are the best of those forms (puruṣarṣabham) since you dispel darkness within and without the cave and the suffering within and without my heart (guhā), just as a lamp dispels darkness and suffering by its light. The example is used since light driving away darkness is experience by everyone. The example does not compare the Lord’s effulgence to that of a lamp.
- Where could one lamp-glance from Kṛṣṇa drive away the dark in your inner cave?
- What 'darkness' would simply lose its grip in His presence?
A traveler watching a single lamp brighten a whole cave and concluding: this is no torch, this is the sun in here. Mucukunda's grammar moves from candidates to a verdict — among the three principal Persons, this is the Highest.
My note
Source: vedabase.io