Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 10.70.44
Blended reading (Sanskrit + English inline)
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caraṇa-ambu
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the water from (Your) feet
Caraṇa — the feet — is the focal organ of Vaiṣṇava bhakti. Caraṇa-ambu is what flows from washing them. The whole Gauḍīya carāṇa-amṛta tradition (drinking deity-foot-water) takes its source in such verses.
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mandākinī
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(the heavenly Gaṅgā called) Mandākinī
The Gaṅgā's name in svarga-loka. Each loka renames the same water, witnessing that bhakti's grace is one current under many local forms.
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bhuvana-maṅgala
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O auspicious for all worlds
Bhuvana-maṅgala — Bhagavān's signature epithet. He is the auspiciousness of every world. The Gauḍīya: maṅgala-ārati at dawn invokes this very name, hailing Him as the source of every world's well-being.
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punāti viśvam
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purifies the universe
Pū — to purify. The verse ends with cosmic purification — His feet's water cleans not only sinners (verse 43) but viśvam, the whole universe. Bhakti is not narrow piety; it is cosmic sanitation.
This translation is based on Śrīla Prabhupāda’s Kṛṣṇa. Śrīdhara Svāmī mentions that the word dig-vitānam indicates that Lord Kṛṣṇa’s transcendental glories spread throughout the universe like a cooling canopy over the universal directions. In other words, the whole world can find shelter under the cooling shade of the Lord’s lotus feet. Thus the Lord is bhuvana-maṅgala, the symbol of everything auspicious for this world.
"What is the cause of this eagerness to see me?" " Your spotless fame , spread in the heavens, earth and lower planets, covering the houses of the directions like a canopy, purifies the universe. In the same way,your foot water purifies the universe. Because their hearts have been purified, they desire to see you." Or "You, whose fame and foot water purify the universe, have been invited to Yudisthira’s sacrifice, where there is a necessity of everything being purified."
Having described the glories of hearing and chanting, Nārada describes a unique feature of hearing the Lord’s glories. Your glories which destroy all contamination in the hearers (amalam yaśaḥ), which are auspicious for the universe, and which are supreme because of creating the greatest auspiciousness (vitānam), are famous everywhere (prathitam), since you have the most pure reputation. Oh! The water from your feet purifies the universe in the form of Mandākinī, Bhogavatī and Gaṅgā. This is astonishing since normally foot water is discarded in a distance place because it is impure.
What can be said? Those who see or touch you become purified. By your fame the universe becomes purified and auspicious. O Lord, auspicious for the world! By your fame the fourteen worlds become auspicious. Or your fame spreads in all directions to make the world auspicious. What can be said? Your fame purifies. It is similar to the purifying power of water from your lotus feet. The word ca indicates that all the water on the three levels purifies, though of the three Gaṅgā is most purifying.
- Where in my world have I missed the canopy of the Lord's auspiciousness?
- What about today could I see as shaded by His mercy?
The water that washes Bhagavān's feet flows as Mandākinī in heaven, Bhogavatī below, and Gaṅgā on earth — like a single melody played on three flutes at once, audible in all three worlds. The river is not a fluid but a name; the name is His feet's perfume diffused everywhere.
When Vāmana stretched His foot to cover the upper worlds (SB 8.21), Brahmā washed that foot, and the wash-water became Gaṅgā, descending through all three lokas. Caitanya-caritāmṛta repeatedly returns to this image.
Nārada here states the doctrine as a hymn: the Gaṅgā is not a geographical river but Bhagavān's carṇa-ambu (foot-water) viewed by different worlds under different names. To bathe in any river of bhakti is to touch His feet.
My note
Source: vedabase.io