Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 10.90.42
Blended reading (Sanskrit + English inline)
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āhukaḥ
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Ugrasena (Āhuka)
A patronymic of Ugrasena — Kaṁsa's father, Kṛṣṇa's maternal grandfather. Kṛṣṇa reinstalled him as king of Mathurā after slaying Kaṁsa. Gauḍīyas note: even those Bhagavān restores are restored at vast scale — Ugrasena's entourage is itself a small cosmos.
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mahā-ātmanām
—
of the great souls
Compound: mahā (great) + ātman (soul). Bhāgavata-vocabulary for Vaiṣṇavas of the highest order (Gītā 9.13: mahātmānas tu māṁ pārtha). The Yādavas are addressed as mahātmās — not merely powerful, but spiritually great.
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saṅkhyānam
—
enumeration
Variant of saṅkhyā. Twice in two verses (40, 42) Bhāgavatam confesses enumeration fails. Aiśvarya cannot be tallied; the lover's bookkeeping breaks. Caitanya Mahāprabhu: kṛṣṇa-aiśvarya is anantam, beyond limit.
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ayuta-lakṣeṇa
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by a hundred million times ten thousand
Compound: ayuta (10,000) + lakṣa (100,000). Three trillion: the multiplication of two large Sanskrit numbers. The poet pushes arithmetic past the speakable, the way mādhurya-rasa pushes intimacy past the displayable.
Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī explains why specifically thirty trillion, rather than an indefinite number of tens of trillions, is stated here to be the number of King Ugrasena’s attendants. He does so by citing the interpretational rule of kapiñjalādhikaraṇa, the logic of “referring to pigeons”: Somewhere in the Vedas is found the injunction that “one should sacrifice some pigeons.” This plural number should be taken to mean not an indiscriminate number of pigeons, but precisely three of them, since the Vedas never leave any matter vague. The rules of Mīmāṁsā interpretation take three as the default number when no specific number is given.
Ayutanam ayuta laksena means 3x 10,000 (ayuta) x 10,000 (ayuta) x 100,000 (laksa), or 30,000,000,000,000, or three sankhas. The description is in the present tense to express Sukadeva’s realization of the eternal nature of the pastimes.
How can one count them all? One cannot count even the servants. Who can count the chief of the Yādavas? Among them Ugrasena had thirty trillion attendants. Instead of sa āhukaḥ sometimes sadāhukaḥ is seen. The present tense indicates the eternal pastimes. This will be established later.
How can one count them all? One cannot count even the servants. Who can count the chief of the Yādavas? Because they were all devotees of the Lord, fully dedicated in their hearts, something will be said. Among them Ugrasena (āhukaḥ) had ten trillion attendants, or more.
- Where am I exhausting myself trying to measure what I should just receive?
- What in my life is beyond accounting and should be enjoyed instead of tallied?
Ugrasena alone walked with thirty trillion attendants. Bhagavān's father-in-law (His maternal grandfather) commands a court Brahmā cannot enumerate. The cosmos around Bhagavān behaves cosmically — the closer to Him, the more uncountable.
My note
Source: vedabase.io