10.36 · The Slaying of Ariṣṭa, the Bull Demon

• ariṣṭaḥ — the demon named Ariṣṭa
  From a- + √riṣ — literally 'unharmed' or 'invincible,' an ironic name for a demon about to be killed by Kṛṣṇa. The Vraja-līlā repeatedly turns demonic names back on their bearers.
• vṛṣabha - asuraḥ — in the form of a bull demon
  Compound: vṛṣabha (bull) + asura (demon). Kaṁsa's agents enter Vraja in animal disguises (Bakāsura the crane, Aghāsura the snake, Dhenuka the ass, now Ariṣṭa the bull) — perversions of the gentle pasture economy Kṛṣṇa actually rules.
• goṣṭham — to the cowherd village
  Go (cow) + sthā (place to stand) — the pasture-settlement of Vraja. Gauḍīyas treat the goṣṭha as the highest concentration of Kṛṣṇa's intimate līlā, the very ground Caitanya wept to recover.
• mahā — great, huge
  Stock prefix in the bull's description (mahā-kakut, mahā-kāyaḥ). The demon's bulk is named to set up its dismantling by a boy's two hands — a recurring Vraja contrast (vast threat, small cowherd, total reversal).
• khura — hoof
  The hooves that tear the earth here are the inverse of the cows' hooves Kṛṣṇa follows in the dust each evening. The same word, opposite use — Vraja's pastoral grammar bent into menace.

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The bull Ariṣṭa enters Vraja the way a thundercloud enters a meadow at noon — vast, snorting, hooves shredding the same soft soil Kṛṣṇa's cows graze on. But Bhagavān stands at the center of that meadow; the storm has come not to ruin the pasture but to be undone by its Lord.

• rambhamāṇaḥ — bellowing
  Present participle of √rambh — to roar, low. The same throat that should chew cud and call calves becomes a weapon. Demonic action in Vraja is almost always the corruption of a pastoral sound.
• khara - taram — most harshly
  Khara (rough, harsh) + comparative -taram. Vraja's auditory signature is Kṛṣṇa's flute and the cows' soft lowing; the demon's voice is named explicitly as their opposite.
• vaprāṇi — the embankments
  The raised borders that hold pasture-water and mark grazing fields. Ariṣṭa attacks the infrastructure of cow-care itself — exactly what a vṛṣabha-rūpa demon should fail at.
• stabdha — fixed, staring
  From √stambh — to make rigid. The demon's frozen glare contrasts with the moving, dancing eyes of the gopīs and the soft glance (kaṭākṣa) of Kṛṣṇa. Bhāva-śāstra reads such fixedness as a mark of tamas.

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A bellowing animal that fouls the ground it stands on is the picture of unchecked rajas-tamas: noise, agitation, refuse — and no fruit. Kṛṣṇa permits Ariṣṭa this whole display so the pasture can see by contrast what a real lord of cows looks like.

• nirhrāditena — by the reverberating sound
  From nir + √hrad — to roar, resound. The sound itself is named the agent of harm; Vraja is so attuned to sweet sound that violent sound alone causes miscarriage in cows and women.
• garbhāḥ — the fetuses
  What the demon's noise destroys is generation itself — Vraja's whole economy is calves, milk, butter, children. The threat is precisely to fertility, which is Kṛṣṇa's own gift to His pasture.
• acala - śaṅkayā — mistaking (it) for a mountain
  Acala (immovable, mountain) + śaṅkā (suspicion, mistaken notion). The clouds' error foreshadows Kaṁsa's: an inflated form is taken for a real power. Both errors will be corrected by the same boy.
• gopyaḥ — the cowherd women
  The gopīs, the supreme reservoir of mādhurya-bhakti. Their fear here is not lack of faith but pure parakīya-anxiety for the safety of their dear Kṛṣṇa — a bhāva, not a defect.
• tīkṣṇa — sharp
  Tīkṣṇa-śṛṅgam — sharp-horned. The word is later inverted in this chapter when Kṛṣṇa rips out one horn and uses it against the demon: the sharpness Ariṣṭa brought becomes his own punishment.

Clouds mistaking the demon's hump for a mountain shows how a counterfeit can briefly fool even the sky. But in a moment Kṛṣṇa will dismantle the illusion with bare hands, and the same clouds will scatter flowers on Him instead.

• bhītāḥ — afraid
  Fear in Vraja is always context-dependent: the residents fear for Kṛṣṇa or are made to fear by demons sent against Him. They never fear samsāra in the abstract — their bhāva is too concrete for that.
• kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇa iti — crying, 'Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa'
  The doubled name is itself the verse's centerpiece. For Gauḍīyas this is the proto-form of harināma — uncalculated, repeated, emerging directly from love and need.
• govindam — Govinda, Lord of the cows
  Go (cow, also senses, also earth) + vinda (one who finds, protects, pleases). Of all His names this one is invoked by the residents because the threat is to the cows; bhakti chooses Kṛṣṇa's name by the rasa of the moment.
• śaraṇam — shelter, refuge
  Śaraṇa-gati — taking shelter — is the doorway of bhakti. Here the whole village does it spontaneously; in Bhagavad-gītā 18.66 Kṛṣṇa will ask for the same thing explicitly. Vraja does without asking.

When the herd is spooked, every cow runs in its own direction; only the cowherds know to run toward the cowherd. Vraja's whole spiritual instinct in one line: when terror comes, the name 'Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa' is already on the tongue before the mind has chosen it.

• bhagavān — the Supreme Personality of Godhead
  Bhagavān = the possessor of bhaga (the six opulences). Gauḍīya theology: Kṛṣṇa is the original Bhagavān (svayam bhagavān, SB 1.3.28), and in Vraja the opulence-words point not to majesty but to the boy who is precisely worshipable because He hides them.
• mā bhaiṣṭa — do not be afraid
  The classical formula of the Lord to His devotees (e.g. to Arjuna, to Dhruva, to Prahlāda). The same syllables that ended Prahlāda's torment now travel through Vraja's pasture air.
• āśvāsya — having reassured (them)
  From ā + √śvas — to breathe again, to give comfort. Kṛṣṇa's first move is always pastoral consolation; the killing of the demon comes after the cows have been settled.
• upāhvayat — He called (the demon) toward Himself
  Pra-upa-hvā — to summon, to invite. Bhagavān actively calls the enemy in. The līlā is not a defensive reaction; it is staged, on Kṛṣṇa's terms, on His ground.

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The same voice that calmed the cows from across the pasture turns and calls the demon by name. 'Don't be afraid' to the residents, and a summons to the bull — both delivered without raising the voice. That is Bhagavān's economy.

• manda — O fool, dull one
  Manda — slow, dull, low. Kṛṣṇa rarely uses harsh vocatives, but to demons He does — the Bhāgavatam preserves a register specifically for ātatāyīs (aggressors), distinct from His sweetness to friends.
• asattama — O most wicked one
  Superlative of asat (untrue, unreal, evil). For Gauḍīyas asat carries metaphysical weight too: that which has no real being. The demon is named for the ontological poverty of his stance against Bhagavān.
• śāstari — when I, the chastiser, am present
  Śāstā — the disciplinarian, ruler, instructor. Kṛṣṇa names His role explicitly: the avatāra-purpose of paritrāṇāya sādhūnāṁ vināśāya ca duṣkṛtām (Gītā 4.8) is operating right now in Vraja.
• durātmanām — of the evil-minded
  Dus (bad) + ātman (self) — those whose very self-direction is wrong. The Bhāgavatam uses this for those whose hostility is settled, not accidental.

A teacher walks into a classroom where a bully has been frightening younger children and says simply, 'I am here.' The bully's chest-puffing collapses the moment the room's actual authority speaks. Kṛṣṇa's words to Ariṣṭa have that quality of effortless asymmetry.

• āsphotya — slapping (His arms)
  Tala-śabda, the wrestler's challenge-slap. Kṛṣṇa adopts the warrior-idiom of the akhāḍā — a foretaste of the Mathurā wrestling match that the rest of this chapter sets up.
• acyutaḥ — the infallible one
  A (not) + cyuta (fallen). One of Kṛṣṇa's foundational names — never fallen from His position, never failing His devotees. Used here exactly when He demonstrates that He cannot be moved.
• sakhyuḥ — of a friend
  Sakhā — the cowherd boys. Sakhya-rasa is named in the very moment of combat. Vraja's emotional grammar is preserved across every kind of action.
• bhuja — arm
  Bhuja-ābhogam prasārya — stretching out the arm-coil. The arm is described almost as a separate creature (serpentine, vast), an emblem of the Lord's playful display of His own form.
• hariḥ — Lord Hari
  Hari — the one who takes away (sins, fears, demons). The name is used in moments of removal; here, Ariṣṭa's life is what is about to be taken.

He slaps His arms and rests one of them on a friend's shoulder. The casual sakhya-gesture in the middle of a fight is itself the doctrine: Kṛṣṇa never leaves His sakhā-bhāva even when killing a demon. His arm on Śrīdāmā's shoulder is more central to the scene than the bull is.

• kopitaḥ — made angry
  Causative past participle of √kup — to be angry. Note the form: the demon is made angry, by Kṛṣṇa's calm provocation. Even the anger is administered.
• khureṇa — with his hoof
  Instrumental case of khura. The hoof that should walk gently on Vraja's soil is named again as a weapon — the demonic inversion of the cow-foot.
• kruddhaḥ — enraged
  From √krudh. The Bhāgavatam carefully distinguishes the demon's krodha (blind rage, tamasic) from the Lord's occasional krodha (corrective, purifying).
• upādravat — he ran toward (Him)
  Upa (toward) + √dru (to run). The demon closes the distance himself. In Vraja-līlā the Lord almost never needs to chase; opposition obligingly delivers itself to His hand.

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Goaded into the charge he was going to make anyway, the demon performs his nature exactly. Kṛṣṇa does not have to plan the encounter; demons in Vraja walk straight into the geometry of their own end.

• viṣāṇa — horn
  The horn pointed forward here will be ripped off and used as a club a few verses later. The Bhāgavatam often introduces a weapon and then names its retribution-use in the same line of narration.
• asṛk — blood (bloodshot)
  Asṛk-locanaḥ — eyes bloodshot. The eye, which in Vraja is the chief organ of Kṛṣṇa-darśana, is here clotted with rage — a darśana-failure even at the moment of looking directly at Him.
• acyutam — the infallible Lord (Him)
  Repeated from verse 8. The narrative names Kṛṣṇa as Acyuta precisely when the demon imagines he can dislodge Him.
• indra - muktaḥ — released by Indra
  Indra + mukta (released). The simile recruits Indra's thunderbolt as the demon's measure — and the seasoned listener already knows what Kṛṣṇa does to Indra's weapons.

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A thunderbolt hurled by Indra — the very weapon that once threatened Govardhana — is now the simile for a single demon's charge. The image quietly reminds the listener: He who already lifted the hill against Indra's storm will not flinch at a bull-shaped lightning.

• gṛhītvā — having seized
  Absolutive of √grah. The same verb used when He grasps Yaśodā's churning-rope, the gopīs' garments, Arjuna's reins. The hand is the same hand.
• śṛṅgayoḥ — by the (two) horns
  Dual locative — both horns at once. Kṛṣṇa's body is described again and again with this kind of precise spatial control; nothing is loose or accidental.
• aṣṭādaśa — eighteen
  Aṣṭa (eight) + daśa (ten) = eighteen. Commentators delight in such numbers — the same eighteen as the Gītā's chapters, the Mahābhārata's parvas, the days of Kurukṣetra. Numerical winks across the corpus.
• gajaḥ — an elephant
  Comparing Kṛṣṇa to an elephant fighting a rival elephant — a register that names Kṛṣṇa's playful adoption of the demon's animal-scale rather than His Vaikuṇṭha-form.

Two elephants in rut clash, and the larger one steps the smaller back. The Bhāgavatam selects the elephant-image rather than a god-image: Kṛṣṇa fights at the demon's scale, in the demon's idiom, and still wins by eighteen paces.

• apaviddhaḥ — thrown back
  Apa (away) + √vyadh (to pierce, throw). The demon has been thrown but not yet finished — the Bhāgavatam often gives the antagonist one more breath, to make the final loss complete.
• svinna — sweating
  From √svid — to sweat. Sweat is a marker — for demons it is exhaustion, for devotees it is sāttvika-bhāva. The same physical fact occupies opposite poles depending on whose body it appears on.
• niḥśvasan — panting heavily
  Nir + √śvas (to breathe out). Breath as labor. The contrast with Kṛṣṇa, whose breathing the verses never even note, is the entire point.
• krodha - mūrcchitaḥ — stunned with anger
  Krodha (anger) + mūrcchita (fainting, stupefied). The Bhagavad-gītā 2.63 chain — krodhāt bhavati sammohaḥ — is dramatized here in physical form: anger so total that consciousness itself blurs.

Repulsed but unable to read the repulsion, the bull comes again. Krodha without jñāna is the loop demons cannot exit — the second charge, the third charge, until Bhagavān decides the loop is finished.

• nigṛhya — seizing
  Ni + √grah — to grasp firmly down. The intensified form of grahaṇa: the demon will not slip out.
• niṣpīḍayām āsa — He squeezed (him) out
  From niṣ + √pīḍ — to press out, wring. The verb's domestic register (used of squeezing fruit, wringing cloth) is theologically pointed: cosmic destruction in the idiom of housework.
• ardram — wet
  The famous wet-cloth simile. The body of the great bull — clouds hovering at its hump — is reduced linguistically to laundry. Vraja's poetics deflates demonic scale on contact.
• viṣāṇena — with (the demon's own) horn
  Instrumental of viṣāṇa. The weapon the demon brought becomes the weapon by which he is finished — a recurring Bhāgavata pattern (Kaṁsa's wrestlers, Jarāsandha's army, Rāvaṇa's boons all turn against their owners).

He throws the demon down and wrings him out like a wet cloth. The verb is from laundry, not warfare. Kṛṣṇa fights demons the way a washerman wrings a sheet — without strain, without anger, with the rhythm of ordinary work.

• nirṛteḥ — of Nirṛti (Death)
  Nirṛti — personified destruction, the deity of the southwestern quarter. The demon's destination is named precisely; for Gauḍīyas this distinguishes the demons Kṛṣṇa kills in Vraja from those (like Pūtanā, Aghāsura) who receive sārūpya — context decides the post-mortem grade.
• kṣayam — to the abode (of destruction)
  Kṣaya — dissolution, the abode of decay. Note: the verse does not say Ariṣṭa attained liberation. The Bhāgavatam is doctrinally precise about which slain demons gain it and which do not.
• puṣpaiḥ — with flowers
  The puṣpa-vṛṣṭi, the celestial rain of flowers, is the gods' standard kīrtana — silent, fragrant approval falling from a cleared sky.
• harim — Lord Hari
  Used at the verse's end after Ariṣṭa's end — Hari, the remover, has removed. The two events are syntactically adjacent.
• suraḥ — the demigods
  Sura — counterpart of asura. The cosmos's full bench-side reaction: the asura is finished, the suras pour flowers. The pasture continues its day.

The demigods scatter flowers from above the moment the demon expires below. Vraja is constantly observed from svarga — the gods are an audience for every pastime, and they signal each act's perfection by a fall of petals.

• kukudminam — the humped one (the bull)
  From kakud (hump) — the bull-demon named by his anatomy. The name belongs to him only by his form; once dead, even the name is shed.
• stūyamānaḥ — being praised
  Passive participle of √stu — being hymned. The brāhmaṇas of Vraja recognize the act and offer stuti. In Vraja, even ritual response is interwoven with daily homecoming.
• sa - balaḥ — together with Balarāma
  Sa (with) + Bala (Balarāma). Gauḍīyas mark this with care: Balarāma is the ādi-guru, the first servant of Kṛṣṇa, and almost every Vraja-līlā names Him alongside Kṛṣṇa even when the action is Kṛṣṇa's alone.
• gopīnām — of the gopīs
  Genitive plural — belonging to the gopīs. The verse turns toward them in its final phrase. Vraja's center of gravity is always parakīya-rasa; the demon-killing is given two verbs, the gopīs' eyes get the verse's last word.
• nayana - utsavaḥ — a festival for the eyes
  Nayana (eye) + utsava (festival). Kṛṣṇa is named by the function He performs in the gopīs' organ of darśana. His person is recurringly defined by what He does to the senses of His lovers.

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He kills the bull and walks back into the village with Balarāma; the gopīs' eyes meet Him at the gate and the demon is already forgotten. For Vraja, the killing was a brief detour — the real event is His return, and the festival their eyes throw at the sight of Him.

• adbhuta - karmaṇā — by Him whose deeds are wondrous
  Adbhuta (wondrous) + karman (action). A signature epithet of Kṛṣṇa's līlā — His acts induce adbhuta-rasa in the witness. The killing of Ariṣṭa is filed under that category.
• nāradaḥ — Nārada Muni
  The bhakti-pracāraka par excellence — author of the Nārada-bhakti-sūtra, guru of Vyāsa, Prahlāda, Dhruva. Gauḍīyas treat Nārada as one of the chief currents through which the bhakti-stream descends to earth.
• deva - darśanaḥ — having godly vision
  Deva (god) + darśana (sight). Nārada sees by divine perception. He is not bringing Kaṁsa speculation; he is bringing the kind of report only an ṛṣi of his rank can give.
• bhagavān — the master (Nārada)
  Bhagavān is applied here to Nārada — a Gauḍīya note: the title extends to His pure devotees by participation, never independently. Nārada is bhagavān because he is wholly Bhagavān's.

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Nārada, who once played the catalyst for Dhruva and Prahlāda, now plays it in reverse — kindling Kaṁsa toward his own destruction by telling him the exact truth. The Lord's līlā uses the same servant to ripen both devotees and demons.

• yaśodāyāḥ — of Yaśodā
  Genitive of Yaśodā. Her name carries vātsalya-rasa intrinsically — the moment Kaṁsa hears it, the network of Vraja becomes legible to him as a target. Even her name has now entered the demon's ear.
• kanyām — the daughter (was the female child)
  The child Kaṁsa dashed against the stone in SB 10.4 — Yogamāyā Herself. Nārada now reveals the substitution Vasudeva and Yaśodā made on that night.
• rohiṇī - putram — the son of Rohiṇī
  Balarāma — Rohiṇī's son by Vasudeva, transferred from Devakī's womb to Rohiṇī's by Yogamāyā (SB 10.2). The whole nativity-secret of Vraja is being declassified in one sūtra-like utterance.
• vasudevena — by Vasudeva
  Nārada names the father. The ān ākadundubhi of the Yadu line is now exposed to Kaṁsa as the smuggler of Bhagavān into the forest. For Gauḍīyas, Vasudeva's quiet, fearful service is itself a paradigm of dāsya.
• nyastau — (the two) were entrusted
  Past participle of ni + √as — to deposit, place down. The verb of safekeeping. Vasudeva did not abandon the boys; he placed them. Gauḍīyas notice this verb's care.

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Nārada unties the knot Kaṁsa has been holding for eleven years: the child you let go in the dungeon was Yogamāyā's, and the boys in the forest are Devakī's actual sons. The whole demon-strategy collapses in one sentence — and the collapse is itself part of the līlā.

• kopāt — out of anger
  Ablative of krodha. The Gītā's chain (krodhād bhavati sammohaḥ, 2.63) plays out here in narrative form — anger immediately produces a senseless act.
• pracalita - indriyaḥ — his senses agitated
  Pracalita (set in motion, disturbed) + indriya (sense). The senses, not the will, are leading. Vaiṣṇava ethics names this state precisely: indriya-grāma in revolt against buddhi.
• asim — sword
  The Bhāgavatam's standard image of Kaṁsa's mode: he answers every revelation with a blade. The same blade was raised against newborn Devakī (SB 10.1) and is raised now against her husband.
• vasudeva - jighāṁsayā — with the desire to kill Vasudeva
  Jighāṁsā — the desiderative of √han (to kill). Kaṁsa's grammar is desiderative-han: he is permanently in the mood-of-wanting-to-kill. Bhakti's opposite is exactly this.

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The sword leaps to the hand before the mind catches up. Kaṁsa is named for this exact reflex throughout the Bhāgavatam — his bhakti-by-fear is real and constant, but every reflex of his arm is murder.

• nivāritaḥ — restrained, checked
  Past participle of ni + √vṛ — to ward off. Nārada plays the protective hand. The same sage who lit demonic fires has lit only the right ones — Vasudeva's life is spared so the narrative can deliver Kṛṣṇa to Mathurā with both parents present.
• mṛtyum — (as his) death
  Mṛtyu — death personified. Nārada uses the exact word Kaṁsa has heard before, in the celestial prophecy of SB 10.1.34. Reminding him of the prophecy is what stops the sword.
• loha - mayaiḥ — made of iron
  Loha (iron) + maya (composed of). Kaṁsa returns Vasudeva and Devakī to the dungeon they had been released from. The chains are not symbolic; the Bhāgavatam wants the reader to feel the parents' pain through this re-imprisonment.
• pāśaiḥ — with chains
  Pāśa — fetter, noose, also the bond of the soul. The same word for Varuṇa's noose and for the bondage of saṁsāra. Vasudeva and Devakī's literal bondage is a figure for the soul's, until Bhagavān comes to break it.

Nārada's hand on Kaṁsa's wrist is gentler than a guru's hand on a student's — and it works for the same reason: the truth Kaṁsa already half-knows surfaces just in time. The sword is sheathed, but the parents are chained, and the wheel turns one notch closer to Mathurā.

• deva - ṛṣau — the sage among the demigods
  Devarṣi — Nārada's standard title. The compound names his cosmic rank: a ṛṣi who can travel among devas, asuras, and humans alike, carrying news between the three worlds.
• keśinam — the demon Keśī
  From keśa (mane) — the long-maned horse-demon. He will appear in person in the next chapter (SB 10.37). The Bhāgavatam introduces him here by Kaṁsa's order, foreshadowing across the chapter-break.
• preṣayām āsa — he sent (Keśī)
  From pra + √iṣ — to send forth. Kaṁsa's verb of choice — he sends. Bhakti is the opposite verb: śaraṇa-gata-rakṣaṇa, taking shelter, not dispatching.
• rāma - keśavau — Rāma and Keśava (the two)
  Rāma (Balarāma) + Keśava (Kṛṣṇa). Keśava — He of beautiful hair, or He who slays Keśī (post-event etymology). The Bhāgavatam quietly names Kṛṣṇa here by the very title He will earn from killing this horse-demon.

• Aindra Pr SB 10-36-20 - Vasanta Pancami - 2002-02-17
  His Grace Aindra Prabhu· 2002-02-17· English

Kaṁsa dispatches Keśī the horse-demon the way a tyrant signs a death-warrant on a passing folder. He does not see that the same hand of Bhagavān has already taken Ariṣṭa; the same hand will receive Keśī. Demonic strategy is the long parade of agents into the same waiting palm.

• muṣṭika - cāṇūra - śala - tośalaka - ādikān — Muṣṭika, Cāṇūra, Śala, Tośala, and others
  The four named wrestlers and their company. Muṣṭika (the fist-fighter) and Cāṇūra (Kaṁsa's champion) will die at Balarāma's and Kṛṣṇa's hands in SB 10.43–44; the list here is a hit-list in reverse.
• amātyān — his ministers
  Sabhā-courtiers. Mathurā's apparatus of state is named in plural — Kaṁsa rules by committee, but his committee is about to be obsolesced.
• hasti - pān — elephant-keepers
  Hastin (elephant) + pā (keeper). The mahā-mātras of Kuvalayāpīḍa, the elephant Kṛṣṇa will kill at the arena's gate (SB 10.43).
• bhoja - rāṭ — King of the Bhojas
  Kaṁsa's tribal title. The Bhojas were the Yadu clan-subgroup he ruled; the Bhāgavatam continually contrasts the bhoja-rāṭ with the eventual yadu-pati (Kṛṣṇa).

• VedavyasaPSW SB 10-36-21 - 2006-09-26 ISKCON Melbourne
  His Holiness Vedavyasa Priya Swami· 2006-09-26· English

He calls in his cabinet — wrestlers, ministers, the elephant-keeper — the way a man assembles tools for a job already lost. Each name in this verse is a name the Bhāgavatam will spend pleasure rolling up in subsequent chapters.

• cāṇūra - muṣṭikau — Cāṇūra and Muṣṭika (dual)
  Kaṁsa addresses his two top wrestlers in the dual — the very form in which they will die, paired, at Kṛṣṇa's and Balarāma's hands in the arena.
• nanda - vraje — in the cowherd village of Nanda
  Nanda-Vraja — Mahārāja Nanda's cowherd settlement. Kaṁsa, the asura, names the most sacred place in Gauḍīya cosmography matter-of-factly as a location to send killers to.
• ānakadundubheḥ — of Ānakadundubhi (Vasudeva)
  Vasudeva's epithet — at his birth, divine drums sounded (ānaka-dundubhi). The name marks Vasudeva as the prophesied father of the avatāra; Kaṁsa uses the name because it is etched in his fear.
• rāma - kṛṣṇau — Rāma and Kṛṣṇa (dual)
  Always paired in this chapter as a unit. Gauḍīya theology: never separate them — Balarāma is Kṛṣṇa's ādi-rūpa, His first expansion, in every līlā beside Him.
• malla - līlayā — on the pretext of wrestling play
  Malla (wrestler) + līlā (play). Tragic irony: Kaṁsa uses the word līlā for his murder-plot, not knowing that what he is staging will indeed be līlā — but Kṛṣṇa's, not his.

The wrestling-match is the demon's idea of a clever frame: kill the boys in public, on a pretext, with cheering crowds. He has no idea the same crowd will become the audience that recognizes Kṛṣṇa as the original wrestler-warrior. His plot is the stage Bhagavān asked for.

• mancāḥ — viewing stands, platforms
  Tiered seats around the arena. The Bhāgavatam carefully names the structure — Mathurā becomes a public theater, and Kṛṣṇa-darśana becomes a city-wide event in chapters 42–43.
• malla - raṅga — wrestling arena
  Malla (wrestler) + raṅga (stage). The akhāḍā in the center of Mathurā that will become the place of Kaṁsa's death. Kaṁsa builds his own execution-ground.
• paurāḥ — the citizens
  City-dwellers of Mathurā. They become a major character in their own right in 10.41 when Kṛṣṇa enters the city and they crowd the rooftops; this verse seeds that scene.
• saṁyugam — the combat
  Sam + yuga (joining) — battle. The same root used in Gītā 1.1 (dharma-kṣetre kuru-kṣetre samavetā yuyutsavaḥ). Kaṁsa is staging a yuga of his own; he will lose it.

Build a stadium, sell the tickets, fill every seat — and then bring the two cowherd boys into the middle. Kaṁsa is constructing his own dharma-kṣetra without knowing it. The crowd he summons to witness murder will witness avatāra instead.

• mahā - mātra — great elephant-keeper
  Mahā (great) + mātra (one who measures, drives). The driver of Kuvalayāpīḍa, named for his rank. He, his elephant, and the gate all enter the Bhāgavatam's permanent vocabulary of Kṛṣṇa's Mathurā entry.
• kuvalayāpīḍaḥ — Kuvalayāpīḍa (the royal elephant)
  Kuvalaya (water-lily, or the whole world) + āpīḍa (crusher) — 'world-crusher.' He will be killed at the arena's gate; his tusk will become Kṛṣṇa's weapon for the wrestlers.
• raṅga - dvāri — at the doorway of the arena
  Raṅga (arena) + dvāra (door). The threshold of the stadium is named — this exact threshold is where Kṛṣṇa will dismount the chariot and meet the elephant in 10.43.4.
• ahitau — my two enemies (the dual)
  A (not) + hita (well-wisher) — the unfriendly. Kaṁsa names Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma as a-hita. From the Gauḍīya side, the most beneficial pair in the universe are labeled by him as the most harmful — perfect inversion.

• Jaga Jivan Pr SB 10-36-25-30 - Seeing Krishna Everywhere - 2014-02-02 ISKCON Chowpatty
  His Grace Jaga Jivan Prabhu· 2014-02-02· English

Park the elephant at the gate, the king instructs — as if the gate of Mathurā could ever again be merely a gate after Kṛṣṇa walks through it. Each step of his plan adds a prop to the very stage of the līlā.

• dhanuḥ - yāgaḥ — the bow sacrifice
  Dhanus (bow) + yāga (sacrifice). A royal Śaiva rite involving the worship of a sacred bow. The huge bow at this sacrifice is the bow Kṛṣṇa will break with one foot in SB 10.42, signaling Mathurā's true ruler.
• caturdaśyām — on the fourteenth lunar day
  Caturdaśī — the fourteenth tithi. The traditional day for Śaiva worship. Kaṁsa is fixing the date; the date itself becomes the trigger of the avatāra's Mathurā-entry.
• bhūta - rājāya — to the Lord of beings (Śiva)
  Bhūta (beings, ghosts) + rāja (king). Lord Śiva. Kaṁsa worships Śiva for personal protection — Gauḍīyas note: worship of any deva turned away from Viṣṇu-bhakti collapses into self-interest.
• paśūn — (sacrificial) animals
  Paśu — animal, also the unsurrendered jīva in tantric vocabulary. The ritual slaughter Kaṁsa orders is itself the marker of his demonic mode: yajña reduced to harm.

• UM SB 10-36-26 - Yajna and Vidhi - 2022-06-06 Hillsborough
  Her Grace Urmila Mataji· 2022-06-06· English

The bow-sacrifice on the Caturdaśī, animals offered to Lord Śiva — Kaṁsa wraps his murder-plan in proper ritual etiquette, an asura's love for the form of yajña without its essence. The Bhāgavatam shows the trap: yajña without bhakti is just decorated cruelty.

• artha - tantra - jñaḥ — knower of the science of self-interest
  Artha (purpose, gain) + tantra (system, science) + jñā (knower). Kaṁsa is named as a master of the artha-śāstra — political calculation. The Bhāgavatam quietly contrasts him with Akrūra, who is about to act outside this calculus.
• akrūram — Akrūra
  A (not) + krūra (cruel) — 'the non-cruel one.' He is named for the opposite of Kaṁsa's whole disposition. Gauḍīya tradition reveres Akrūra as a great devotee and the chariot-driver who carried the Lord out of Vraja.
• yadu - puṅgavam — best of the Yadus
  Yadu (the Yadu clan) + puṅgava (bull, foremost). Akrūra is the foremost Yadu, the same lineage from which Kṛṣṇa Himself takes birth. Kaṁsa is sending a Yadu to bring two more Yadus — his own kinsmen executing his fall.
• pāṇim — (his) hand
  The hand-taking gesture (pāṇi-grahaṇa) is the language of intimate trust — used in marriage, in friendship-pacts. Kaṁsa imitates the form to extract Akrūra's cooperation; the Bhāgavatam wants the reader to feel the hollowness.

• BKG SB 10-36-27 - Artha personal interest and advantage - 2022-06-07 New Goloka
  His Holiness Bir Krishna Goswami· 2022-06-07· English

Kaṁsa takes Akrūra's hand in his own — the very gesture of friendship, performed by a man whose every other gesture is murder. Bhakti's tragedy and comedy both: Akrūra, who lives inwardly already as Kṛṣṇa's devotee, is now to be sent on the perfect errand by the perfect enemy.

• dāna - pate — O master of charity
  Dāna (charity) + pati (master). Akrūra's lineage of giving — he is famed as a great dānī. Kaṁsa praises him for the very virtue Kaṁsa lacks, in order to use it.
• maitram — a friendly favor
  From mitra (friend). The mitra-bhāva Kaṁsa asks for is, in the bhakti-rasa-śāstra, the foundation of sakhya-bhakti — but applied here in mockery, between conspirators. The word resonates against its rasa-meaning.
• bhoja - vṛṣṇiṣu — among the Bhojas and Vṛṣṇis
  Bhoja (Kaṁsa's clan) + Vṛṣṇi (Vasudeva-Akrūra's clan). Both branches of the Yadus. Kaṁsa names the family-spectrum across which he is asking Akrūra to act.
• hita - tamaḥ — the most well-wishing
  Hita (beneficial) + superlative -tama. The same root that gave a-hita in verse 25 (where Kaṁsa named Kṛṣṇa-Balarāma as his enemies). The word-pair brackets the chapter: Kaṁsa labels people who help him with hita and people who threaten him with ahita — a moral grammar built entirely around his own survival.

Kaṁsa flatters Akrūra as 'most charitable, most kind' — accurate adjectives, used cynically. The asura's mode is to manipulate the genuine virtues of devotees toward his ends; the līlā permits this because the manipulation will deliver Akrūra exactly where his heart already wants to go.

• āśritaḥ — having taken shelter, depending
  Past participle of ā + √śri — to take shelter. Kaṁsa uses śaraṇāgati's vocabulary instrumentally; for Gauḍīyas the word is sacred — it is what Bhagavad-gītā 18.66 asks for.
• saumya — O gentle one
  Soma-like — cool, mild. The address fits Akrūra exactly. Kaṁsa unintentionally names Akrūra's true mood — the one that will, on the road to Mathurā, dissolve into Kṛṣṇa-prema.
• viṣṇum — Lord Viṣṇu
  Viṣṇu — the all-pervading Lord. Kaṁsa names Viṣṇu out loud in his own throne-room. Gauḍīya theology: the very name on demonic lips carries protective force; Kaṁsa is killed by Kṛṣṇa partly because he could not stop saying His names.
• sva - artham — his own purpose
  Sva (own) + artha (interest, purpose). Indra's purpose was kingdom; Kaṁsa's, the same. The Bhāgavatam notes the parity of motives — and the radical difference of outcomes when one motive (Indra's) is finally placed before Viṣṇu and the other (Kaṁsa's) is held against Him.

Kaṁsa names a precedent for his request: Indra took shelter of Viṣṇu to win his ends. The example is exact — and entirely against him. The same Viṣṇu whose shelter Indra took is now embodied in the boy Kaṁsa is sending Akrūra to fetch. He cites the very Lord he means to kill.

• nanda - vrajam — to Nanda's cowherd village
  Nanda + vraja. The same compound used in verse 22; the Bhāgavatam keeps naming the destination as belonging to Nanda — a quiet sovereignty-claim by vātsalya-rasa. Even Kaṁsa cannot speak of Vraja without naming Nanda.
• sutau — the two sons
  Dual of suta — the two boys. Always the dual: Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma. The pair is so welded in narrative that Kaṁsa's order necessarily covers both.
• rathena — by chariot
  Ratha — chariot. Gauḍīya tradition reads the ratha here as the vehicle of bhakti itself — Akrūra's chariot will carry the Lord, but only because the driver's mind already does.
• mā ciram — without delay
  Mā (do not) + ciram (long time). 'Hurry.' Kaṁsa's anxiety in two syllables. He cannot bear the prophecy unresolved one more day; his own hurry delivers Bhagavān to his arena.

'Go fetch the two boys on this chariot.' Said as a simple errand. But the chariot to Vraja is, in Gauḍīya memory, the chariot of separation — the one on which Kṛṣṇa will leave Vṛndāvana, the wheels of which still mark Akrūra's tīrtha on the bank of the Yamunā.

• mṛtyuḥ — (my) death
  Mṛtyu — death. Kaṁsa accepts the prophecy verbatim. He will not deny it; he will only try to outmaneuver it. The Bhāgavatam's diagnosis: false confidence in one's own will against destined Bhagavān.
• devaiḥ — by the demigods
  The same devas whom Kaṁsa displaced from svarga. The Bhāgavatam frames the avatāra-purpose throughout this canto as paritrāṇa of these devas — a relief that arrives through the children of Vasudeva.
• vaikuṇṭha - saṁśrayaiḥ — by those sheltered by Vaikuṇṭha (Viṣṇu)
  Vaikuṇṭha (the place of no anxiety) + saṁśraya (taking refuge). Kaṁsa names the devotional doctrine — refuge in Vaikuṇṭha — as the operating principle behind the demigods' attack on him.
• abhyupāyanaiḥ — with gifts of tribute
  Abhi + upāyana (a gift offered with approach). The cowherds are to bring gifts — Kaṁsa wants the appearance of vassalage. The Bhāgavatam notes how a demon stages dharma's outer form to mask adharma's act.

• Sesa Pr SB 10-36-31-37 - 2014-03-11 ISKCON Alachua
  His Grace Sesa Prabhu· 2014-03-11· English
• BRS SB 10-36-31-40 - 2023-05-14 ISKCON Vrindavan
  His Holiness Bhakti Raghava Swami· 2023-05-14· English
• VedavyasaPSW SB 10-36-31 - 2006-09-28 ISKCON Melbourne
  His Holiness Vedavyasa Priya Swami· 2006-09-28· English

He admits aloud that the demigods, sheltered by Viṣṇu, have sent these boys as his death. Kaṁsa's intelligence is unimpaired; only his will is. He sees the whole picture and walks straight into it — vidveṣa-bhakti's dark mirror.

• ghātayiṣye — I shall have (Them) killed
  Causative future of √han (to kill). Kaṁsa makes himself a remote cause — he will have it done, not do it. Even his violence is delegated; the only thing in his palace that is direct is the truth Nārada brought.
• kāla - kalpena — like time itself, like death itself
  Kāla (time) + kalpa (resembling). The elephant compared to Kāla, devourer. Yet in five chapters Kṛṣṇa kills Kāla-like Kuvalayāpīḍa with a single twist of the tusk — Kṛṣṇa is the kāla of Kāla (kāla-kālaḥ).
• hastinā — by the elephant
  Hastin — elephant. The kingly weapon. Mathurā's signature instrument of state-power, deployed at the arena-gate.
• vaidyuta - upamaiḥ — comparable to lightning
  Vaidyuta (lightning) + upamā (likeness). The wrestlers' strength is named with Indra's weapon-image again — same image as verse 10's thunderbolt. The Bhāgavatam keeps recycling Indra-similes for Kṛṣṇa's opponents, since Indra Himself was already conquered at Govardhana.

If the elephant fails, the wrestlers; if the wrestlers fail, the next plan. Kaṁsa lists backups for Bhagavān's murder. Every plan is correct in form and impossible in fact. The Bhāgavatam smiles at the cumulative redundancy of an asura against the Lord.

• taptān — (those) afflicted, lamenting
  Past participle of √tap — to be heated, pained. Kaṁsa anticipates the family's grief and treats it as cause for further killing. Asura-logic: their pain proves they love what I want destroyed; therefore destroy them too.
• vasudeva - purogamān — headed by Vasudeva
  Vasudeva + puroga (going in front, foremost). Vasudeva is named the leader of the relatives — the same Vasudeva Nārada has just exposed as Bhagavān's father. Kaṁsa's full extermination-target.
• vṛṣṇi - bhoja - daśārhakān — the Vṛṣṇis, Bhojas, and Daśārhas
  Three Yadu sub-clans. The Bhāgavatam names them because the Yadu-vaṁśa is the Lord's own appearance-lineage; Kaṁsa's plan is to annihilate it entirely, which makes it the chapter's most pointed adharma.
• nihaniṣyāmi — I shall kill
  Future of ni + √han. The first-person killing-verb in Kaṁsa's mouth is in the future tense — a future Bhagavān has already cancelled.

Kaṁsa's list is generational: kill the boys, then the parents, then every relative who mourns them. Hatred without an off-switch is its own form of theology — a perfect inverse of bhakti's all-inclusive love. The Bhāgavatam puts the speech in his mouth so we can hear the contour exactly.

• ugrasenam — Ugrasena (his father)
  Ugra (fierce) + sena (army) — 'fierce-army.' Yet the man is mild. Kaṁsa had already imprisoned him and seized the throne (SB 10.1.69); now he proposes to finish him. Gauḍīyas note: Kṛṣṇa will free Ugrasena and restore him as Mathurā's king in SB 10.45.
• pitaram — (my) father
  Pitṛ — father. Kaṁsa names him as 'father' even while planning to kill him — the Bhāgavatam preserves the word to mark the depth of the offense, by Vedic standards the gravest of crimes.
• kāmukam — greedy, lustful (for the kingdom)
  From √kam — to desire. Kaṁsa projects his own greed onto Ugrasena. The Bhāgavatam often catches asuras in this exact projection: the very vice they live by is named in others as the pretext for harm.
• vidviṣaḥ — (my) enemies
  Vi + √dviṣ — to hate. The same root as dveṣa, one of the kleśas. Kaṁsa lives inside the kleśa of dveṣa and names the world from inside it; everyone becomes vidviṣa.

• VedavyasaPSW SB 10-36-34 - 2006-09-29 ISKCON Melbourne
  His Holiness Vedavyasa Priya Swami· 2006-09-29· English

He turns finally on his own father. The arc of Kaṁsa's plan, traced verse by verse, terminates at parricide. The Bhāgavatam quietly shows how demonic ambition exhausts its outward targets and finally consumes its own kin — a reverse-Vraja, where family is destroyed instead of treasured.

• mahī — the earth
  Mahī — the earth, also bhū-devī. The same earth-goddess prayed to Brahmā in SB 10.1 for relief from demonic kings; Kaṁsa unknowingly names the very being whose petition started the whole avatāra-mission.
• mitra — O friend
  Address to Akrūra. Kaṁsa uses friendship-vocabulary; for Gauḍīyas the irony lands hard — true friendship is Kṛṣṇa-sakhya, which Akrūra is about to enter; Kaṁsa's mitra-bhāva is the simulacrum.
• naṣṭa - kaṇṭakā — free of thorns
  Naṣṭa (destroyed) + kaṇṭaka (thorn). Bhāgavatam's stock idiom for a peaceful realm. Kaṁsa imagines the thorns are Kṛṣṇa-Balarāma-Ugrasena-Vasudeva — exactly inverted from reality, where the thorn is himself.

'Then the earth will be free of thorns.' One half-line — the asura's vision of utopia. The Bhāgavatam pairs his line with its silent rebuttal: the earth is freed of thorns precisely when Bhagavān removes Kaṁsa Himself, six chapters from now.

• jarāsandhaḥ — Jarāsandha
  Jarā (the old woman) + sandha (joined). Born in two halves and joined by the demoness Jarā. King of Magadha, Kaṁsa's father-in-law. He invades Mathurā seventeen times in SB 10.50–52 and is finally killed by Bhīma.
• dvividaḥ — Dvivida
  The monkey-demon, brother of Mainda. He befriended Naraka and ravaged the earth. Balarāma kills him in SB 10.67 — Gauḍīyas note this as a Balarāma-only victory, a quiet sphere of His independent action.
• śambaraḥ — Śambara
  The demon who, alarmed by a prophecy of his own, stole infant Pradyumna and was eventually killed by him in SB 10.55. The same prophecy-fear that drives Kaṁsa drives Śambara — the asura type is repeatable.
• narakaḥ — Naraka
  Narakāsura, the son of Bhū-devī, who tormented the demigods until Kṛṣṇa killed him at Prāgjyotiṣapura (SB 10.59), liberating the sixteen thousand princesses.
• bāṇaḥ — Bāṇa
  Bāṇāsura, devotee of Lord Śiva, possessor of a thousand arms. Defeated by Kṛṣṇa in SB 10.62–63 in the war over his daughter Uṣā and Aniruddha.
• kṛta - sauhṛdāḥ — having made friendship (with me)
  Kṛta (made) + sauhṛda (friendship, lit. 'good-heartedness'). The friendship is named precisely so that the Bhāgavatam can later show its instability: each of these 'friends' falls separately, none rescues Kaṁsa, and even Jarāsandha cannot save his son-in-law.

Kaṁsa lists his allies: Jarāsandha, Dvivida, Śambara, Naraka, Bāṇa. The Bhāgavatam files them for later use — every one of these names will appear in a later chapter of Canto 10 or 11 as a demon Kṛṣṇa kills, displaces, or domesticates. Kaṁsa's friend-list is the Lord's to-do list.

• rāma - kṛṣṇau — Rāma and Kṛṣṇa
  Repeated yet again as the dual unit. Each repetition seats the pair more firmly in the chapter's structural center; Kaṁsa cannot finish a sentence without naming them.
• arbhakau — the two boys, the two children
  Arbhaka — a small child, a boy. Kaṁsa uses the diminutive, perhaps to belittle. Vraja uses the same word constantly out of vātsalya. The same syllables, opposite bhāvas — characteristic of the Bhāgavatam's economy.
• dhanuḥ - makha — the bow sacrifice
  Dhanus (bow) + makha (sacrifice). Same yāga as verse 26. The bait. Kṛṣṇa's response in SB 10.42 will be to lift the great bow and break it in two — a coronation-act without a coronation.
• yadu - pura - śriyam — the splendor of the Yadu capital
  Yadu + pura (city) + śrī (splendor). Mathurā. The Bhāgavatam names the city with full reverence; Kaṁsa rules it but does not own it — Kṛṣṇa is its true Lord, returning to claim what was always His.

'Bring the two boys — let them see the bow sacrifice and the splendor of Mathurā.' Cover-story over a death-plot, sightseeing as bait. The Bhāgavatam smiles: yes, the boys will see Mathurā — and Mathurā will see them, and the city's gaze will never recover.