Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 10.54.35
Blended reading (Sanskrit + English inline)
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cailena
—
with a strip of cloth
Cela — a cloth, a strip. Domestic material, not a warrior's rope. Vyāsa specifies the texture to underline the comedy: this is now a household scene, not a battlefield.
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sa-śmaśru-keśam
—
leaving some of his mustache and hair
Sa (with) + śmaśru (mustache) + keśa (hair). The 'partial shave' — Indian custom of half-shaving (ardha-cumbana) as social mark of public disgrace. Kṛṣṇa's punishment is exquisitely chosen: dishonor calibrated to Rukmī's vanity, not to his life.
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vyarūpayat
—
made him disfigured
Causative of vi-√rūp, 'to deform.' From rūpa (form). Bhagavān is the Form of forms; He alone has the right to grant or take form. Rukmī's vanity was attached to his rūpa, so the Lord touches exactly that.
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yadu-pravīrāḥ
—
the foremost heroes of the Yadu dynasty
Yadu + pravīra (foremost hero). Vyāsa names the army with affection — these are not mere soldiers but the Lord's relatives. Familial categories of bhakti animate even military verses.
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nalinīm
—
a lotus flower
Nalinī — lotus. The army crushed 'like a lotus by elephants.' The image is delicate: even destruction is rendered in vraja-vegetal vocabulary. The Bhāgavatam never lets its similes wander from its lotus-feet.
Lord Kṛṣṇa used His same sharp sword to give the wicked Rukmī a peculiar haircut.
Thinking, "I should do something so that he cannot come and cause disturbance again" Krsna showed his contempt for Rukmi by marking his body with some ugly features to let him remember his defeat and dissolve his pride. He tied Rukmi’s head cloth around his neck, and holding the two ends of that cloth with his left hand, with his right hand holding a sword, he knocked off Rukmi’s turban and shaved off bits of his moustache, beard and hair at the root, drawing blood, so that here and there bunches of hair remained. In this way Rukmi looked completely disfigured.
He tied him with a piece cloth which had been bound around Rukmī’s head and with his knife cut his hair and mustache in order to lessen his abusive mentality, which should be punished. He shaved him in an irregular manner so that some of his hair and moustache remained. Sa-śmaśru-keśam acts as a bahuvrīhi compound adverb. This is explained in Śrīdhara Svāmī’s commentary. Or sa can be taken as saḥ (he), meaning Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa (saḥ) disfigured his hair and moustache (śmaśru-keśam). While Rukmī was being defeated, the Yadus defeated his bold armies. Instead of adbhūtam sometimes uddhatam (bold) is seen.
Kṛṣṇa tore a piece of his cloth and tied up Rukmī. Forcibly he shaved him because he did wicked deeds. While Kṛṣṇa did this, the Yadus defeated his armies. This happened simultaneously. The troops were situated far from the city and were unlimited and proud. Or though they were proud and valorous, the best warriors among the Yadus like Balaṛama crushed them easily. This is illustrated with the example of the elephants crushing a lotus.
- Where could humiliation be more appropriate than destruction for an inner adversary?
- How do you choose between killing and shaving the same problem?
Tied with cloth, half-shaved, ridiculous — Rukmī receives the punishment of a wedding-prankster, not of a mortal enemy. Kṛṣṇa converts a duel into a comic shave. The elephants of the Yadus crush the army like a lotus, while their Lord, with the same hand that could have killed, gives a peculiar haircut.
My note
Source: vedabase.io