Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 10.66.36
Blended reading (Sanskrit + English inline)
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akṣaiḥ
—
playing with dice
Compound phrase: akṣa (die) + krīḍ (to play). Echoes the dice-game of the Mahābhārata. Gauḍīyas note: Kṛṣṇa plays dice with His associates as part of His Dvārakā-līlā — the līlā never pauses; only its expression changes. The dice fall, the protection rises, all in one continuous motion.
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bhaya-āturāḥ
—
agitated with fear
Compound: bhaya (fear) + ātura (afflicted). The exact phrase Kuntī uses in her prayers (SB 1.8) describing the Pāṇḍava experience of vipad. Gauḍīyas hold that bhaya-ātura prayer is one of the most efficacious — it carries no pretension, only need.
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trāhi trāhi
—
Save us! Save us!
Doubled imperative of √trai (to protect). The standard Vaiṣṇava prayer of distress. Gauḍīyas point out: doubled trāhi indicates that the second cry is louder than the first — the Bhāgavata records the rising desperation in the very repetition.
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tri-loka-īśa
—
O Lord of the three worlds
Compound vocative: tri (three) + loka (world) + īśa (lord). The citizens, panicked, reach for the largest title they know. Gauḍīyas note: in extremity, the bhakta does not address Kṛṣṇa by His sweet names (Govinda, Mukunda) but by His grandest — the fear of the moment calls forth aiśvarya, not mādhurya.
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pradahataḥ
—
which is burning up
Present participle of pra-√dah, genitive. The fire is actively burning in the moment of the cry — there is no time to wait. Gauḍīyas read this as a paradigm of how to call on the Lord: not in calm formal sentences but in the urgent present tense.
"Please save us, please save us, " they said.
They narrate what was previously described. Save us from the fire completely burning the city. They repeat the word trāhi because of extreme fear. This is easy for you since you protect the three worlds (tri-lokeśa).
- When did I last cry out to Kṛṣṇa simply, without dressing it up?
- Where am I waiting until I am 'ready' to call on Him?
Children run to the father playing dice and tug his sleeve; he sets down the dice and stands. The Lord at the gaming-table is not less the Lord; the dice are part of the same līlā as the disc.
When Duḥśāsana drags Draupadī by the hair into the Kuru gambling-court, she cries 'Govinda Dvārakāvāsin, my Lord, save me' — and Kṛṣṇa, though physically absent, extends her sari without limit (Mahābhārata, Sabhā-parva). The Dvārakā citizens' trāhi trāhi in 10.66.36 is the same call; the Lord is in the act of gaming when each cry arrives, and in each case the dice are set down and the protection extended.
Gauḍīyas read the two episodes as paired: bhakta-ārtti (the devotee's distress) is the only thing that interrupts the Lord's līlā, and even then it interrupts the līlā only because the protection is itself another līlā.
My note
Source: vedabase.io