Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 10.78.31-32
Blended reading (Sanskrit + English inline)
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ajānatā
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unknowingly
Present participle of √jñā, negated. The sages frame the killing as inadvertent — though the verse 24-27 sequence makes clear Balarāma knew exactly what He was doing. They offer Him a face-saving framing for the sake of the ritual outcome.
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yoga-īśvarasya bhavataḥ
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of You, the Lord of yoga
Same title used of Kṛṣṇa in v.16. The sages explicitly invoke Balarāma's identity as Yogeśvara — the very identity that exempts Him from āmnāya-constraint, and yet they are about to ask Him to bind Himself anyway.
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āmnāyaḥ
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Vedic injunction
From ā-√mnā (to repeat from memory, to learn from teacher). The transmitted Veda. Even the Veda does not command the Lord; He commands its application. The sages name this and then ask Him to suspend His exemption.
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pāvanam
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purification
From √pū. The act of making pure. The atonement procedure is itself the pāvana — and the Lord becomes loka-pāvana ('purifier of the world') by performing it. The purified is the purifier.
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loka-saṅgrahaḥ
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for the holding-together of the world
Loka (world) + saṅgraha (holding together). Gītā 3.20-25's central phrase. The whole reason the Lord performs anything He does not need to. The sages quote Kṛṣṇa's own theology back to His brother.
Just as an ignorant man may act, you have acted, but for you there is not possibility of sinful intention because you are the master of yoga. If you do some purification for killing the brahmana, it is just to teach the common people and nothing more, because you are self appointed ( ananya coditah).
Though it done without considering all aspects (ajanatā), it is like killing a brāhmaṇa. But it is not killing a brāhmaṇa. But you are not under the control of scriptures since you are the Lord of yoga. But if your feel inspired, not by others, but by yourself as the Lord, or if you are completely inspired, then you should purify yourself to teach the world, for by maintaining dharma you purify the world (loka-pāvana).
You have done something similar (yathā) to killing a brāhmaṇa. Or he has been rightly killed, since we gave him the seat of brāhmaṇa. As the supreme Lord (yogeśvarasya) you are beyond the rules of scripture. O purifier of the worlds! Even the most sinful are purified just by chanting your name. What is the need of atonement for you? You are not forced by others, since you do not have to do atonement or as supreme Lord you are not directed by others.
Even the Lord of all yoga-aiśvarya, the sages say, is not commanded by scripture — He is svatantra. But if of His own free will He performs the prescribed atonement, ordinary people will inherit a model. The Lord's voluntary submission to ritual is the Bhāgavatam's quietest, deepest pedagogy.
Kṛṣṇa Himself articulates the principle at Gītā 3.21-25: yad yad ācarati śreṣṭhas tat tad evetaro janaḥ — whatever the great one does, others follow. He bathes, eats, sleeps, fights, prays, atones — not because He needs to, but because His every act is template.
Mahāprabhu took sannyāsa in the same spirit — not for His own mokṣa, which He could not lack, but as loka-śikṣā. Caitanya-caritāmṛta returns repeatedly to this: the Lord's līlā includes voluntary submission to dharma's forms, so that the forms remain alive.
My note
Source: vedabase.io