Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 10.28.3
Blended reading (Sanskrit + English inline)
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kṛṣṇa
—
O Kṛṣṇa
Vocative — the cry itself. Gauḍīyas treat the spontaneous, distressed kṛṣṇa-nāma as the highest sādhana, because it surfaces without calculation. Yaśodā cried it at the binding; Draupadī cried it in court; Vraja cries it on the riverbank.
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gopakāḥ
—
the cowherd men
Diminutive-affectionate of gopa. Nanda's intimate circle — the very souls whose acintya-bhedābheda recognition of Kṛṣṇa is about to deepen. Their cry is itself a confession of His Lordship before they know it consciously.
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bhagavān
—
the Supreme Lord
Bhaga-vat — possessor of the six opulences (Viṣṇu Purāṇa 6.5.47). Śukadeva slips this title in precisely at the moment Kṛṣṇa is acting as a son rescuing His father — collapsing aiśvarya and mādhurya in one clause.
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abhaya-daḥ
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the giver of fearlessness
Compound: abhaya (no fear) + da (giver). A standing epithet of Viṣṇu (cf. Gītā 18.66, mā śucaḥ). Here the abhaya-da is also a son going to fetch His father — the same gift, miniaturized into Vraja's domestic scale.
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vibhuḥ
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the almighty, all-pervading
From vi-√bhū. The very name that says "He is everywhere" is applied as He walks somewhere — to Varuṇa's court. Vibhutva does not contradict līlā-gati; Bhagavān freely localizes Himself out of love.
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svānām
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of His own devotees
Genitive plural of sva. Gauḍīyas weight this word heavily: the gopas are not generic jīvas but svajana — His own — and the chapter's climax (verses 14–17) is the formal disclosure of what that ownership means in dhāma-tattva.
Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura explains that when Nanda Mahārāja went to bathe in the river, he was accompanied by several cowherd men. When Nanda did not come out of the water, they began to cry out, and Lord Kṛṣṇa immediately came there. Understanding the situation, Śrī Kṛṣṇa entered the water and went to the court of the demigod Varuṇa, determined to free His father and the other cowherd men from fear of a mere demigod.
Other cowherd men had accompanied Nanda Maharaja as guards when he went to take his bath at night. Though Krsna was sleeping on his bed of flowers far off, he heard the cowherd men shouting "Krsna, Rama!" The word upa srtuya indicates that he heard from close by, because Krsna pervades all places, and in this way is close to everyone, very near. He could understand that his father had been taken by Varuna. Quickly approaching the cowherd men, he asked where his father had sunk in the water. Finding the place, he jumped from the bank into the river, and approached Varuna (tad antikam). He is called svanam abhaya dah (relieving the fear of his associates), because later, by taking his father from Varuna and returning, he relieved the fear of his relatives.
The cowherds who guarded Nanda on all sides began shouting. Though they shouted from far away, Kṛṣṇa heard the shouts as if close (upaśrutya). Understanding that Nanda had been taken by Varuṇa, he went close to him (antikam) since he was all-pervasive (vibhuḥ). He gave fearlessness to all the people of Vraja, what to speak of to his father.
They loudly sang “Kṛṣṇa, Raṁa!” out of great pain, spontaneously they just uttered the names of the Lord, The name Krṣṇa is first because they had special affection for that name or because of its special power. Or it refers to the two brothers Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma. The cowherds (gopakāḥ) had gone with Nanda to bathe or were his guards surrounding him on four sides. Kṛṣṇa heard at close hand the shouting and how Nanda had been taken. This means that Kṛṣṇa came to the place later. Or because of the shouting (tat), hearing from far off as if it were close (upaśrutya), he entered the water. He had been attracted by the shouting. O king! Similarly the Lord gave fearlessness when the elders shouted as the brahmastra sent by Āśvatthāmā approached you. Or the Lord shone (rājan), emitting effulgence because of anger, because he was the sole master of the people of Vraja (vibhuḥ). Or though he was all-pervading (vibhuḥ), he came there quickly out of affection. He was bhagavān, who shows unlimited qualities such as compassion delivering the people of the world. Though he could by his will alone deliver Nanda from the demon, in order to give benefit to Varuṇa, by his great mercy, he entered the water on the pretext of delivering Nanda.
Children, finding their father vanished in the dark, cry out the name of their elder brother — and the elder brother, who is in truth the Father of all, comes running. In Vraja the order of worldly seniority is inverted: Kṛṣṇa is Nanda's son, yet at the moment of fear it is His Name that the gopas shout, because some part of them has always known who is really protecting whom.
When Duḥśāsana pulled at her sari in the Kuru court and no human protector stood, Draupadī released her last hold on self-effort and called out, "He Kṛṣṇa, he Govinda!" The cloth became endless; Bhagavān responded as abhaya-da, the giver of fearlessness (Mahābhārata, Sabhā-parva).
The gopas' cry of "Kṛṣṇa! Rāma!" carries the same grammar in a vātsalya key — not the queen's helplessness but the cowherds' instinctive turn to the boy among them whom only the heart had already crowned.
My note
Source: vedabase.io