• nara-lokam — the world of men
  Compound: nara (man) + lokam (world). The human plane he gave up. Vaiṣṇava texts distinguish nara-loka (limited, mortal) from Vaikuṇṭha (unlimited, eternal). The demigods are offering him return to the first; only Kṛṣṇa, in this chapter, can offer the second.
• rājyam — kingdom
  From √rāj — to rule. The very thing he will later (verse 54) thank Kṛṣṇa for having stripped from him by 'spontaneous detachment.' The Bhāgavata sets up the contrast carefully: rājya served as duty is one thing; rājya clung to as identity is bondage.
• nihata-kaṇṭakam — whose thorns are removed
  Compound: nihata (struck down) + kaṇṭakam (thorn, enemy). His earthly kingdom was pacified before he left. The demigods stress this so he knows he is owed nothing — he had given up an easy possession to render hard service.
• vīra — O hero
  Vocative — the demigods name him as the kṣatriya-vīra. The same word will be re-spent in verse 31 when he calls Kṛṣṇa puruṣa-vyāghra — true vīratva, by the chapter's end, belongs to Bhagavān, and the bhakta's vīratva is to recognize Him.
• kāmaḥ — desires
  Plural — the personal kāmas he set aside for sevā. Gauḍīyas note: setting aside kāma for demigod-service is dharma; but kāma can return, as the next verses warn. Only fixing the mind on Bhagavān (verse 61) finally exhausts it.

A king who left his garden untended to fight on someone else's frontier — Mucukunda walked away from a thornless earthly kingdom because the demigods asked. The verse asks: what does a kṣatriya do with an empty throne behind him? Bhagavān, in chapter's end, will answer.