Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 10.77.30
Blended reading (Sanskrit + English inline)
-
rāja-ṛṣe
—
O sage among kings
Compound vocative: rāja (king) + ṛṣi (sage). Addressed to Parīkṣit. Śukadeva flags the next two verses as doctrinally weighty by reaching for the rājarṣi form of address — wake up, this is for you.
-
na anvitāḥ
—
not coherent
Phrase: na (not) + anvita (followed-through, joined logically). The polemical heart of the verse: such sages' accounts do not hold together. Bhāgavatam exegesis is hereby authorized to push back against inconsistent narration even from rishis.
-
sva-vācaḥ-virudhyeta
—
their own words would contradict
Phrase: sva-vāc (one's own speech) + viruddha (contradicted). The criterion of false commentary — self-contradiction. Gauḍīya hermeneutics formalizes this: any reading that makes Bhagavān ignorant must contradict prior śāstra describing Him as akhaṇḍa-jñāna.
If someone thinks that Lord Kṛṣṇa was actually bewildered by Śālva’s magic and that the Lord was subjected to ordinary mundane lamentation, such an opinion is illogical and contradictory, since it is well known that Lord Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, transcendental and absolute. This will be further explained in the following verses.
Having presented the story as told by others, now Sukadeva destroys it with this verse. Some sages who were not careful to see the agreement of all statements before and after (na anvitah) have related this story. They did not consider that their words were contradictory to other statements of the bhagavatam. Krsna did not go to the rajasuya sacrifice with Balarama as stated in verse eight, since previously it was stated that Krsna took permission from Balarama and then went to Indraprastha without him. Thus how can the words attributed to Krsna in verse eight be true? Even if they were true, how could Krsna say such things as "How did weak Salva defeat Balarama unconquerable by devas or demons and take away my father?"
Some sages speak but illogically since their words are contradictory. They do not investigate. Nūnam indicates conjecture or certainty.
They who are sages by reciting mantras or by knowledge alone speak in this way. Or though they are sages, they speak contrary to their own words. They do not consider what they have said. Nūnam indicates conjecture or certainty. Or according to Vaiśampāyana in Hari-vaṁśa, Balarāma went to the rājasūya sacrifice (in contradiction to Bhāgavatam). In Mahābhārata and Hari-vaṁśa, at the svayamvara of Rukmiṇī, Jarāsandha and others describe Kṛṣṇa as the supreme Lord. This is also contrary to Bhāgavatam.
- Where am I drawing conclusions about Kṛṣṇa from one part of the story while contradicting another?
- How do I hold the whole picture of His nature?
Śukadeva, hearing some sages report this episode as if Kṛṣṇa really grieved, gently rebukes such commentators: "They contradict themselves, having forgotten their own earlier statements." Gauḍīya exegesis is born here — the Bhāgavatam itself models how to read its own narration: never naturalize the Lord's mood-display into bewilderment.
Verses 30-32 are an extraordinary metatextual moment: Śukadeva pauses the narrative to push back against "some sages" (ṛṣayaḥ ke ca) who tell the story as though Kṛṣṇa actually lost His knowledge. Vyāsa, through Śukadeva, builds in his own correction.
Viśvanātha Cakravartī seizes on this passage as the locus classicus for narahari-līlā exegesis: the Lord's grief in v. 23 is not real lamentation but a deliberate human-mood display, and any reader who takes it as ontological forgetting has "forgotten his own earlier statements" (sva-vācaḥ na smaranti) — namely, the standard Bhāgavatam declaration that Bhagavān is akhaṇḍita-jñāna.
My note
Source: vedabase.io