Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 10.83.3
Blended reading (Sanskrit + English inline)
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āsavam
—
intoxicating nectar
Āsava is a fermented honey-wine. The verse deliberately uses the most charged word for liquor and applies it to Hari-kathā: the bhakta is not sober, he is intoxicated — but by Kṛṣṇa's feet, not by viṣaya. The Gauḍīyas read this as the rasa-tattva embedded in even the dvārakā-līlā.
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caraṇa - ambuja
—
lotus feet
Caraṇa (foot) + ambuja (lotus-born). The compound is the single most-repeated Gauḍīya meditation-object. Note: the āsava flows from these feet — bhakti is the wine pressed out of Kṛṣṇa's own pādāravinda.
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karṇa - puṭaiḥ
—
with the cups of the ears
Karṇa (ear) + puṭa (cup, fold). The ear is rendered a drinking vessel. Gauḍīya śravaṇa-bhakti rests on this image — Hari-kathā is taken in not as information but as drink.
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asmṛti
—
forgetfulness
A (not) + smṛti (remembrance). The soul's foundational disease — forgetting the Lord who made the body. The wine of Hari-kathā cures precisely this forgetting; smaraṇa is the antidote and the medicine.
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deha - kṛt
—
maker of the body
Deha (body) + kṛt (maker). Bhagavān is named here as the very architect of the embodiment the soul has come to mistake for itself. The verse argues that to forget the deha-kṛt is the original error; remembering Him is the original cure.
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prabho
—
O master
Vocative of prabhu. The kings address Kṛṣṇa not as kinsman now but as Lord — the conversation has shifted register, and the address tracks the shift.
What can be inauspicious for those with material bodies who drink through their ears the nectar of your lotus feet, which flows from the minds of the great devotees (mahamanastah) out through their mouths, and destroyed that ignorance which produced our bodies?
From where or from what cause can there be inauspiciousness for those you hear about you? At all times, everywhere, they have auspiciousness. Some profusely (alam) drink (hear about with pleasure) the sweetness (āsavam) of your lotus feet—the excellence of your pastimes, qualities and form with devotion using their ears. “How do they attain what is most rare?” That sweetness as flowed from the minds of great devotees through their mouths. It has appeared by means of the mouth with extreme fullness. The word āsavam indicates that topics are naturally sweet. By its intoxicating effect it makes one forget all suffering. The destruction of inauspiciousness is shown by kaimutya. It is proper to remember the creator of the body by directly seeing it. These topics destroy forgetfulness of you, the body’s creator. Or for those who have bodies which give various sufferings at all times, these topics destroy forgetfulness which causes production of bodies (deha-kṛt). Those topics cause continual remembrance of the Lord. This is possible because of your power. O Lord endowed with all ability (prabho)! If there is no inauspiciousness for others who hear accidentally, now by your mercy we certainly have no inauspiciousness because we hear about you while you personally distribute that sweetness. We see you directly and you ask us questions. Since the Pāṇḍavas’ previous unlimited inauspiciousness was destroyed, how could it again appear? Thus they always experienced auspiciousness.
- What nectar from a devotee's mouth has poured into my ear recently?
- What forgetfulness has it dissolved?
Words about Kṛṣṇa, flowing from the mouths of great devotees, enter the ears as a wine pours into a cup — and the cup is the soul itself. Once drunk, the wine does not produce forgetfulness but burns away the older drunkenness of forgetting who made this body in the first place. Material liquor numbs; Hari-kathā wakes.
Cursed to die in seven days, King Parīkṣit took no other shelter than this drink. Seated on the bank of the Gaṅgā, he opened the cups of his ears to Śukadeva's mouth and drank Bhāgavatam continuously.
The verse here describes precisely what was happening to him: the āsavam of Kṛṣṇa's caraṇāmbuja, poured from mahat-manastaḥ through Śukadeva's mukha, was destroying his deha-asmṛti — the embodied soul's forgetfulness — even as the snake's poison crept toward him. Outside, death; inside, only Kṛṣṇa.
My note
Source: vedabase.io