Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 10.11.16
Blended reading (Sanskrit + English inline)
-
he rāma
—
O Balarāma
Vocative with the particle 'he' — formal address. Yaśodā calls Balarāma first and formally before calling Kṛṣṇa. Gauḍīya teaching: even in Vraja's most intimate love, the senior is addressed first. This is the seed of the sampradāya principle of approaching Kṛṣṇa through Balarāma (the original guru-tattva).
-
āśu
—
immediately
Āśu — quickly, without delay. The same word the Gītā uses for swift action (BG 4.39: śraddhāvāl labhate jñānaṁ … āśu). Yaśodā's call invokes the same urgency: when love calls, delay is the only impropriety.
-
kula - nandana
—
delight of the family
Kula-nandana — He who gives delight (nanda) to the kula (family line). Balarāma is so addressed because His mere presence sustains the family's spiritual atmosphere. Gauḍīya tradition: every family that hopes to hold bhakti needs a Balarāma-figure — a senior who anchors and delights.
-
kṛta - āhāraḥ
—
having eaten
A compound — 'one for whom eating has been done.' The grammatical passive matters: in Vraja, Kṛṣṇa's eating is Yaśodā's act as much as His. The doer is the offerer; the recipient is the Lord; bhakti dissolves the line between.
She addressed Balarāma as the son of the dynasty, so that Kṛṣṇa would come quickly out of envy. It can also be an address to him. Another version has krīḍā-śrānto si putraka: O son! You are tired from playing. Putraka (little son) indicates a show of mercy out of affection.
- Offer your next meal to Kṛṣṇa with the affection of one feeding a beloved child, not the formality of a ritual checklist.
- Notice when you serve others (family, juniors, dependents) with calculation, and replace it today with the unconditional care Yaśodā shows here.
- Refuse the impersonalist habit of treating Kṛṣṇa as an abstraction — speak to Him directly, by name, the way mother Yaśodā calls 'tāta, āśu, āgaccha.'
A grandmother calls both grandchildren in from the field — the older one first, by his honorific, because addressing the senior with respect is itself how you reach the junior who walks at his side. Yaśodā summons Rāma as kula-nandana, knowing Kṛṣṇa walks beside Him, and bhakti always honors the elder to reach the beloved.
Throughout the Tenth Canto, Yaśodā addresses Balarāma with formal honorifics — kula-nandana, dāśārha, Rāma — even as she calls Kṛṣṇa with intimate diminutives (tāta, putraka, aravindākṣa). The grammatical asymmetry is doctrinal.
Gauḍīya theology: Balarāma is Kṛṣṇa's original ādi-guru and elder; even in the most intimate vātsalya-rasa, He is approached through the register of respect, while Kṛṣṇa is approached through the register of love. Devotees who skip over Balarāma — and gurus generally — to reach Kṛṣṇa miss the structure that Yaśodā herself observes.
My note
Source: vedabase.io