Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 10.81.19
Blended reading (Sanskrit + English inline)
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caraṇa-arcanam
—
worship of the lotus feet
Compound: caraṇa (foot) + arcana (worship). One of the nine limbs of bhakti (śravaṇaṁ kīrtanaṁ viṣṇoḥ smaraṇaṁ pāda-sevanam arcanam…, SB 7.5.23). Gauḍīyas privilege caraṇa-sevā as the relational anchor of all sādhana.
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mūlam
—
the root cause
mūla — root. The structural metaphor: bhakti is the trunk, all worldly and otherworldly attainments are branches. Cut the trunk and the branches die; nourish the trunk and the branches flourish on their own.
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svarga-apavargayoḥ
—
of heaven and ultimate liberation
Compound: svarga (heavenly enjoyment) + apavarga (liberation). The standard Vedic pair of post-mortem goals. Sudāmā says both grow from one root — the same root no Vedic ritual on its own can reach.
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siddhīnām
—
of mystic perfections
Genitive plural of siddhi. Even yogic siddhis come from caraṇa-arcana. Gauḍīya tradition treats yogic powers as side-effects of bhakti, not its goal — exactly the ranking Sudāmā gives them here.
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rasāyām
—
in the subterranean regions
Locative of rasā (the underworld / lower planets). The verse covers the whole vertical cosmos — heaven, earth, underworld — and locates the root of opulence in all three in one place: Kṛṣṇa's feet.
Worship of his feet is the cause of all wealth and power on earth or lower planets, for destruction of saṁsāra and attainment of Svarga. Even if one performs perfectly other methods, there are obstacles, whereas if one just remembers his lotus feet one attains the goal perfectly. “Worship of his feet” means performance of bhakti. But I did not perform bhakti since I only offered him a handful of chipped rice.
Worship of his feet is the cause of all wealth and power on earth or lower planets, for destruction of saṁsāra and attainment of Svarga. This suggests that he also is qualified to attain him since he has taken shelter of his feet.
- What goal of mine could I trace back to the Lord's feet rather than to my own striving?
- How does that reorient my approach?
Every fruit on every tree in heaven, every release from every chain, every siddhi in every cave — all of them grow from a single root, which is service to Kṛṣṇa's two lotus feet. Sudāmā has watched the root being watered: nothing else can be more important than what he has just witnessed.
SB 4 records the Pracetās austerities and Pṛthu's reign: every opulence — heavenly enjoyment, mystic perfection, eventual liberation — was, in the Bhāgavatam's reading, traceable to bhagavat-caraṇa-arcana. The verse Sudāmā now utters is the doctrinal compression of every such episode: pāda-sevana is mūla, the root.
My note
Source: vedabase.io