Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 10.40.16
Blended reading (Sanskrit + English inline)
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krīḍana-artham
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for the sake of play
Compound: krīḍana (play) + artha (purpose). The avatāras descend out of līlā, not necessity. Jīva Gosvāmī (Kṛṣṇa-sandarbha) insists Bhagavān has no unfulfilled need; what looks like rescue is actually His play.
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bibharṣi
—
You bear, You assume
From √bhṛ — to hold, to wear. The Lord 'wears' forms the way a person wears garments — not changing essence, only outward shape. Echoes Gītā 4.6: prakṛtiṁ svām adhiṣṭhāya — using His own internal energy to manifest.
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āmṛṣṭa-śucaḥ
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whose sorrows are wiped away
Compound: ā-mṛṣṭa (wiped clean) + śuc (sorrow). The pastimes themselves do the wiping — not afterwards through merit, but in the very moment of joyful chanting.
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mudā gāyanti te yaśaḥ
—
joyfully sing Your glories
muda (joy) + gāyanti (they sing) + te yaśas (Your fame). The Gauḍīya prescription for the age: kīrtana itself is the rescue. Cf. Bṛhan-nāradīya: harer nāma harer nāma harer nāmaiva kevalam.
"What are your various svarupas?" "People blissfully glorify those forms which exist eternally and mercifully show themselves to us in the material world, appearing for pastimes such as killing Madhu and Kaitabha and which purify those people afflicted by lamentation and illusion arising from ignorance."
It is difficult to realize you in your true form. Though knowledge brings intense bliss, we do not see that happiness. Great bliss arises and all lamentation ceases for everyone from seeing the pastimes of your avatāras and from hearing about them. Thus the devotees sing about those pastimes. jṣāne prayāsam udapāsya namanta eva jīvanti san-mukharitāṁ bhavadīya-vārtām sthāne sthitāḥ śruti-gatāṁ tanu-vāṅ-manobhir ye prāyaśo ’jita jito ’py asi tais tri-lokyām Those who, giving up attempts to understand your powers and living constantly in devotional association, who pass their lives respecting topics about you and your associates with the ear, by body, mind and words, which they proclaim loudly, bring you under control through you cannot be controlled by anyone in the three worlds. SB 10.14.3 Repetition of yāni indicates that all these forms are worthy of worship since they remove lamentation and bestow bliss. “You sustain (bibharti) these many forms” indicates that these are all expansions from Kṛṣṇa. All people (lokāḥ) chant these pastimes. There is no qualification necessary. They chant in joy (mudā), since this singing is the highest human goal. Or this verse indicates that the Lord is worshipped by the Vaiṣṇavas, though this was previously mentioned with other types of ordinary worship. Verse 7 mentioned that the one Lord was worshipped in many forms (bahu-mūrty-eka-mūrtikam). Since Akrūra never mentioned those forms at that time, being unsatisfied now, he mentions them.
A king who already rules disguises Himself and walks through the village square, juggling, dancing, lifting cows — not because He must, but to delight His people and dissolve their grief. Kṛṣṇa's avatāras are this descent: not necessity but krīḍana, play, in which the singing of His names becomes the cure for every sorrow.
When Indra unleashed the seven-day flood, Kṛṣṇa lifted Govardhana hill on His left little finger for the Vrajavāsīs — a pastime of pure krīḍana that simultaneously rescued His people from terror (SB 10.25).
The Vrajavāsīs sang of it for the rest of their lives. Akrūra, who is on the road to Vraja precisely to fetch Kṛṣṇa back to Mathurā, names in verse 16 the very dynamic he is living inside: He plays, they sing, the singing erases their grief.
My note
Source: vedabase.io