Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 11.4.7
इन्द्रो विशङ्क्य मम धाम जिघृक्षतीति
कामं न्ययुङ्क्त सगणं स बदर्युपाख्यम् ।
गत्वाप्सरोगणवसन्तसुमन्दवातै:
स्त्रीप्रेक्षणेषुभिरविध्यदतन्महिज्ञ: ॥ ७ ॥
indro viśaṅkya mama dhāma jighṛkṣatīti
[indro vishankya mama dhaama jighrikshateeti]
kāmaṁ nyayuṅkta sa-gaṇaṁ sa badary-upākhyam
[kaamam nyayunkta sa-ganam sa badary-upaakhyam]
gatvāpsaro-gaṇa-vasanta-sumanda-vātaiḥ
[gatvaapsaro-gana-vasanta-sumanda-vaataih]
strī-prekṣaṇeṣubhir avidhyad atan-mahi-jñaḥ
[stree-prekshaneshubhir avidhyad atan-mahi-jnah]
Word-for-word
indraḥ
—
Lord Indra
viśaṅkya
—
fearing
mama
—
my
dhāma
—
kingdom
jighṛkṣati
—
He wants to devour
iti
—
thinking thus
kāmam
—
Cupid
nyayuṅkta
—
he engaged
sa-gaṇam
—
with his associates
saḥ
—
he (Cupid)
badarī-upākhyam
—
to the āśrama named Badarikā
gatvā
—
going
apsaraḥ-gaṇa
—
with the heavenly society girls
vasanta
—
the spring season
su-manda-vātaiḥ
—
and the gentle breezes
strī-prekṣaṇa
—
(consisting of) the glances of women
iṣubhiḥ
—
with his arrows
avidhyat
—
attempted to pierce
atat-mahi-jñaḥ
—
not knowing His greatness.
Blended reading (Sanskrit + English inline)
indro viśaṅkya mama dhāma jighṛkṣatīti
indraḥ
Lord Indra
viśaṅkya
fearing
mama
my
dhāma
kingdom
jighṛkṣati
He wants to devour
iti
thinking thus
kāmaṁ nyayuṅkta sa-gaṇaṁ sa badary-upākhyam
kāmam
Cupid
nyayuṅkta
he engaged
sa-gaṇam
with his associates
saḥ
he (Cupid)
badarī-upākhyam
to the āśrama named Badarikā
gatvāpsaro-gaṇa-vasanta-sumanda-vātaiḥ
gatvā
going
apsaraḥ-gaṇa
with the heavenly society girls
vasanta
the spring season
su-manda-vātaiḥ
and the gentle breezes
strī-prekṣaṇeṣubhir avidhyad atan-mahi-jñaḥ
strī-prekṣaṇa
(consisting of) the glances of women
iṣubhiḥ
with his arrows
avidhyat
attempted to pierce
atat-mahi-jñaḥ
not knowing His greatness.
King Indra became fearful, thinking that Nara-Nārāyaṇa Ṛṣi would become very powerful by His severe penances and seize Indra’s heavenly kingdom. Thus Indra, not knowing the transcendental glories of the incarnation of the Lord, sent Cupid and his associates to the Lord’s residence in Badarikāśrama. As the charming breezes of spring created a most sensuous atmosphere, Cupid himself attacked the Lord with arrows in the form of the irresistible glances of beautiful women.
Purport
This verse and the following nine verses illustrate the Personality of Godhead’s opulence of supreme renunciation. The word atan-mahi-jñaḥ, “not understanding the glories of the Lord,” indicates that King Indra was placing the Personality of Godhead on the same level as he himself, considering the Lord an ordinary enjoyer who would be attracted by mundane sex life. Indra’s plot to cause the falldown of Nara-Nārāyaṇa Ṛṣi could not affect the Lord, but it reveals the shortsightedness of Indra himself. Because Indra is attached to his heavenly kingdom, he took it for granted that the Supreme Lord was performing austerities to acquire such flickering phantasmagoria as the kingdom of heaven ( tridaśa-pūr ākāśa-puṣpāyate ).
— A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda
Gauḍīya Ācāryas
Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura
Gauḍīya
Translation
Indra became fearful, thinking that Nara-Nārāyaṇa Ṛṣi would seize his heavenly kingdom. Thus Indra sent Cupid, who, with his associates, went to the Lord’s residence in Badarikāśrama. Cupid, not knowing the power of the Lord, released arrows of glances from beautiful women, along with the charming breezes of spring.
Cupid (saḥ), not knowing the Lord’s greatness, going to Badarikāśrama with Apsarās, released arrows of women’s glances.
Related lectures
Personal Guidance
Indra projects his own enjoyer-mentality onto the Lord; the soul who mistakes Kṛṣṇa for a rival enjoyer reveals only his own atan-mahi-jṣaḥ blindness.
Practical Applications
- Notice today the precise moment you assume someone holier than you is secretly after the same things you want, and check that projection.
- When envy of another's sādhana arises, refuse the Indra-impulse to test or undermine them, and instead inquire what they are actually pursuing.
- Before any act of worship, remind yourself that Kṛṣṇa is not an enjoyer of mundane fruits, so do not bargain with Him as if He were.
Reflection Questions
- Where in my life am I, like Indra, defending a tridaśa-pūr — a flickering kingdom — that I have mistaken for something worth protecting from God Himself?
- Whose austerity or detachment have I recently tried to explain away, and what does that reveal about the kind of enjoyer I still take myself to be?
For Each Age Group
youth
- When a classmate disciplines their study, sleep, or phone use, refuse the Indra-reflex of teasing them back into your habits and ask honestly what they are after.
- Notice the specific 'spring breezes' your feed engineers — reels, DMs, suggested friends — and recognize them as targeted arrows, not neutral weather.
- Before envying someone's scholarship, internship, or relationship, check whether you are measuring their life by the small kingdom you currently want to defend.
householder
- When a family member takes up serious sādhana, resist the urge to question their practicality, and instead protect the conditions that let them continue.
- Audit one 'heavenly kingdom' you are guarding at work — a title, a client, a reputation — and ask whether you would suspect a saint of wanting it from you.
- In raising children, refuse to interpret their renunciations — of screens, of certain foods, of fashionable peer groups — as threats to the household's status.
senior
- Where younger devotees are doing austerities you no longer do, bless them out loud rather than diagnosing them as ambitious or imbalanced.
- Identify the tridaśa-pūr of your own life-stage — being consulted, being needed, being remembered — and begin loosening your grip on it before it is taken.
- Mentor at least one person specifically in the distinction between Kṛṣṇa as supreme Personality and Kṛṣṇa as an upgraded demigod, since this is the error of a lifetime.
Common Pitfalls
- Reading this verse as a story about Indra's pettiness while quietly identifying with the supposedly neutral narrator rather than with Indra's own viṣaya-blindness.
- Concluding that since Kṛṣṇa cannot be disturbed by Cupid's arrows, the practitioner is also immune, and so dropping the vairāgya the verse is actually illustrating.
- Treating atan-mahi-jṣaḥ as a label for ancient demigods rather than as a diagnosis of one's own daily failure to recognize the Lord's transcendental position.
Discussion Prompts
- Indra sends spring breezes, apsarās, and Cupid's arrows — which of these three weapons does the modern environment deploy most heavily against you, and do the others even register anymore?
- Is it possible to honor varṇāśrama duties — including holding a position of authority like Indra's — without sliding into Indra's specific error of measuring others by one's own appetites?
- Prabhupāda calls the heavenly kingdom 'flickering phantasmagoria.' Share one concrete kingdom in your own life that the group might still consider substantial, and let the others push back.
Role Play
A senior devotee in your community has begun a strict sādhana — early rising, fasting, long japa — and a respected elder pulls you aside and says, 'Watch him; people who do that much tapasya are usually angling for a post.' One of you plays the elder, one plays the devotee being warned; work through the conversation so that the Indra-projection is named without disrespecting the elder's concern.
Objections & Responses
- Indra's fear sounds reasonable — historically, powerful ascetics have in fact challenged kings. Why label him atan-mahi-jṣaḥ rather than prudent?
Prudence would have been to investigate who Nara-Nārāyaṇa Ṛṣi actually is; Indra skipped that step and assumed the Lord wanted his throne. The verse is not condemning vigilance, it is exposing the specific blindness of treating the Personality of Godhead as one more contender for viṣaya. - This story of Cupid, apsarās, and spring breezes attacking a sage reads as mythological window-dressing — what is the practical takeaway for a serious student today?
Strip the imagery and the mechanism is exact: a threatened ego dispatches sensual atmosphere, attractive company, and soft conditions to dissolve another's resolve. We have seen the same pattern in offices, families, and our own minds; the verse names it and shows that only one rooted beyond enjoyership is untouched.
My note
Source: vedabase.io