Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 10.83.6-7
Blended reading (Sanskrit + English inline)
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acyutaḥ
—
the infallible one
A (not) + cyuta (fallen). Draupadī addresses Kṛṣṇa by the name He earned by never letting His devotees fall — including her own famous rescue in the Kuru assembly. The vocative resonance is personal.
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he kṛṣṇa - patnyaḥ
—
O wives of Kṛṣṇa
Patnī — co-yajña-partner, not merely 'wife'. The plural sets the chapter's frame: each patnī performs her own yajña of relationship with the same Lord, and the chapter is a recording of those simultaneous yajñas.
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upayeme
—
He married
Perfect tense of upa + √yam — to take in marriage. Draupadī's verb places agency on Kṛṣṇa: He married each of them. The queens will narrate how — but the deeper truth, that He chose them, is fixed at the outset.
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lokam anukurvan
—
imitating ordinary society
Loka (world) + anu (after) + √kṛ (do). Gauḍīya commentators take this as load-bearing: Kṛṣṇa's marriages are not bound by karma; they are imitations of human custom undertaken so the līlā can be visible. The svayaṁvaras, the dowries, the elopements — all are anukaraṇa, divine mimicry.
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sva - māyayā
—
by His own mystic power
Sva (own) + māyā (potency). The māyā here is His own — i.e. Yoga-māyā, not Mahā-māyā. The Lord's marriages are arranged by His internal potency to display the full spectrum of conjugal relationship for the world's instruction.
The Rohiṇī addressed here by Draupadī is not Lord Balarāma’s mother but another Rohiṇī, the foremost of the sixteen thousand princesses Lord Kṛṣṇa rescued from the prison of Bhaumāsura. Draupadī turns to her as the representative of all sixteen thousand, and as a virtual equal to Śrī Kṛṣṇa’s eight chief queens.
Kausala here refers to Nagnajiti. O queens, please tell us in truth, how Krsna married you. Or how he married you without cheating. (seems anamaya is used instead of svamayaya in some texts.)
Drauāpadī asked with great curiosity about the marriages because of her friendship with the queens. Kṛṣṇa is called Acyuta because he never left the houses of any of them. Though I know you queens of the Lord are eternally so because you are forms of Lakṣmī, please describe how he married you, while imitating ordinary behavior giving mercy (māyā) to all his devotees in his prakaṭa pastimes. She shows reverence and curiosity. Though it was possible to address the queens in order of seniority, according to when they were married, she calls to them according to the sitting arrangement at that time. She also adds the word he in addressing the three chief queens with respect. Rohiṇī was the chief among the sixteen thousand one hundred queens. She is mentioned with the chief eight since she was equal to them. In answering her, the queens speak in order of the time of their marriages. Jāmbavatī was married to Kṛṣṇa before Satyabhāmā but when they speak Satyabhāmā speaks first because of her special love for the Lord. Bhadrā and Mitravindā are reversed when speaking verses in Śrīdhara Svāmī’s version. This is an error of the copier since it produces a contradiction to the previous descriptions of the marriage given in Chapter 58. In his commentary on Lakṣṁaṇā’s words on verse 17, Bhadrā’s name should replace Mitravindā’s.
- Whose story of meeting the Lord could I ask to hear?
- What does asking honor about the other person's path?
Draupadī's question is the listener's question. She names each queen one by one, knowing each has a different door by which she entered Kṛṣṇa's house — one was carried away from a wedding, one offered with a jewel, one earned through tapas, one given freely by a father, one chosen at a svayaṁvara. Like a teacher who asks every student to share how they arrived at the school, she invites the full bouquet of rasas.
My note
Source: vedabase.io