:: Chapter 4 :: Transcendental Knowledge

Text 4

arjuna uvaca
aparam bhavato janma
param janma vivasvatah
katham etad vijaniyam
tvam adau proktavan iti

Synonyms

arjunah uvaca--Arjuna said; aparam- junior; bhavatah--Your; janma--birth; param--superior; janma--birth; vivasvatah--of the sun-god; katham--how; etat--this; vijaniyam--shall I understand; tvam--You; adau--in the beginning; proktavan--instructed; iti--thus.

Translation

Arjuna said: The sun-god Vivasvan is senior by birth to You. How am I to understand that in the beginning You instructed this science to him?

Purport

Arjuna is an accepted devotee of the Lord, so how could he not believe Krisna's words? The fact is that Arjuna is not inquiring for himself but for those who do not believe in the Supreme Personality of Godhead or for the demons who do not like the idea that Krisna should be accepted as the Supreme Personality of Godhead; for them only Arjuna inquires on this point, as if he were himself not aware of the Personality of Godhead, or Krisna. As it will be evident from the Tenth Chapter, Arjuna knew perfectly well that Krisna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the fountainhead of everything and the last word in transcendence. Of course, Krisna also appeared as the son of Devaki on this earth. How Krisna remained the same Supreme Personality of Godhead, the eternal original person, is very difficult for an ordinary man to understand. Therefore, to clarify this point, Arjuna put this question before Krisna so that He Himself could speak authoritatively. That Krisna is the supreme authority is accepted by the whole world, not only at present but from time immemorial, and the demons alone reject Him. Anyway, since Krisna is the authority accepted by all, Arjuna put this question before Him in order that Krisna would describe Himself without being depicted by the demons, who always try to distort Him in a way understandable to the demons and their followers. It is necessary that everyone, for his own interest, know the science of Krisna. Therefore, when Krisna Himself speaks about Himself, it is auspicious for all the worlds. To the demons, such explanations by Krisna Himself may appear to be strange because the demons always study Krisna from their own standpoint, but those who are devotees heartily welcome the statements of Krisna when they are spoken by Krisna Himself. The devotees will always worship such authoritative statements of Krisna because they are always eager to know more and more about Him. The atheists, who consider Krisna an ordinary man, may in this way come to know that Krisna is superhuman, that He is sac--cid-ananda-vigraha--the eternal form of bliss and knowledge--that He is transcendental, and that He is above the domination of the modes of material nature and above the influence of time and space. A devotee of Krisna, like Arjuna, is undoubtedly above any misunderstanding of the transcendental position of Krisna. Arjuna's putting this question before the Lord is simply an attempt by the devotee to defy the atheistic attitude of persons who consider Krisna to be an ordinary human being, subject to the modes of material nature.

Text 5

sri-bhagavan uvaca
bahuni me vyatitani
janmani tava carjuna
tany aham veda sarvani
na tvam vettha parantapa

Synonyms

sri-bhagavan uvaca--the Personality of Godhead said; bahuni--many; me--of Mine; vyatitani--have passed; janmani--births; tava--of yours; ca--and also; arjuna--O Arjuna; tani--those; aham--I; veda--do know; sarvani--all; na--not; tvam--you; vettha--know; parantapa--O subduer of the enemy.

Translation

The Personality of Godhead said: Many, many births both you and I have passed. I can remember all of them, but you cannot, O subduer of the enemy!

Purport

In the Brahma-samhita (5.33) we have information of many, many incarnations of the Lord. It is stated there:

advaitam acyutam anadim ananta-rupam
adyam purana-purusam nava-yauvanam ca
vedesu durlabham adurlabham atma-bhaktau
govindam adi-purusam tam aham bhajami

"I worship the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Govinda [Krisna], who is the original person--absolute, infallible, without beginning. Although expanded into unlimited forms, He is still the same original, the oldest, and the person always appearing as a fresh youth. Such eternal, blissful, all-knowing forms of the Lord are usually understood by the best Vedic scholars, but they are always manifesting to pure, unalloyed devotees." It is also stated in Brahma-samhita (5.39):

ramadi murtisu kala-niyamena tisthan
nanavataram akarod bhuvanesu kintu
Krisnah svayam samabhavat paramah puman yo
govindam adi-purusam tam aham bhajami

"I worship the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Govinda [Krisna], who is always situated in various incarnations such as Rama, Nrsimha and many subincarnations as well, but who is the original Personality of Godhead known as Krisna, and who incarnates personally also."

In the Vedas also it is said that the Lord, although one without a second, manifests Himself in innumerable forms. He is like the vaidurya stone, which changes color yet still remains one. All those multiforms are understood by the pure, unalloyed devotees, but not by a simple study of the Vedas (vedesu durlabham adurlabham atma-bhaktau). Devotees like Arjuna are constant companions of the Lord, and whenever the Lord incarnates, the associate devotees also incarnate in order to serve the Lord in different capacities. Arjuna is one of these devotees, and in this verse it is understood that some millions of years ago when Lord Krisna spoke the Bhagavad-Gita to the sun-god Vivasvan, Arjuna, in a different capacity, was also present. But the difference between the Lord and Arjuna is that the Lord remembered the incident whereas Arjuna could not remember. That is the difference between the part-and-parcel living entity and the Supreme Lord. Although Arjuna is addressed herein as the mighty hero who could subdue the enemies, he is unable to recall what had happened in his various past births. Therefore, a living entity, however great he may be in the material estimation, can never equal the Supreme Lord. Anyone who is a constant companion of the Lord is certainly a liberated person, but he cannot be equal to the Lord. The Lord is described in the Brahma-samhita as infallible (acyuta), which means that He never forgets Himself, even though He is in material contact. Therefore, the Lord and the living entity can never be equal in all respects, even if the living entity is as liberated as Arjuna. Although Arjuna is a devotee of the Lord, he sometimes forgets the nature of the Lord, but by the divine grace a devotee can at once understand the infallible condition of the Lord, whereas a nondevotee or a demon cannot understand this transcendental nature. Consequently these descriptions in the Gita cannot be understood by demonic brains. Krisna remembered acts which were performed by Him millions of years before, but Arjuna could not, despite the fact that both Krisna and Arjuna are eternal in nature. We may also note herein that a living entity forgets everything due to his change of body, but the Lord remembers because He does not change His sac-cid-ananda body. He is advaita, which means there is no distinction between His body and Himself. Everything in relation to Him is spirit--whereas the conditioned soul is different from his material body. And because the Lord's body and self are identical, His position is always different from that of the ordinary living entity, even when He descends to the material platform. The demons cannot adjust themselves to this transcendental nature of the Lord, which the Lord Himself explains in the following verse.

Text 6

ajo 'pi sann avyayatma
bhutanam isvaro 'pi san
prakrtim svam adhisthaya
sambhavamy atma-mayaya

Synonyms

ajah--unborn; api--although; san--being so; avyaya--without deterioration; atma--body; bhutanam--of all those who are born; isvarah--the Supreme Lord; api--although; san--being so; prakrtim--in the transcendental form; svam--of Myself; adhisthaya--being so situated; sambhavami--I do incarnate; atma-mayaya--by My internal energy.

Translation

Although I am unborn and My transcendental body never deteriorates, and although I am the Lord of all living entities, I still appear in every millennium in My original transcendental form.

Purport

The Lord has spoken about the peculiarity of His birth: although He may appear like an ordinary person, He remembers everything of His many, many past "births," whereas a common man cannot remember what he has done even a few hours before. If someone is asked what he did exactly at the same time one day earlier, it would be very difficult for a common man to answer immediately. He would surely have to dredge his memory to recall what he was doing exactly at the same time one day before. And yet, men often dare claim to be God, or Krisna. One should not be misled by such meaningless claims. Then again, the Lord explains His prakrti, or His form. Prakrti means "nature," as well as svarupa, or "one's own form." The Lord says that He appears in His own body. He does not change His body, as the common living entity changes from one body to another. The conditioned soul may have one kind of body in the present birth, but he has a different body in the next birth. In the material world, the living entity has no fixed body but transmigrates from one body to another. The Lord, however, does not do so. Whenever He appears, He does so in the same original body, by His internal potency. In other words, Krisna appears in this material world in His original eternal form, with two hands, holding a flute. He appears exactly in His eternal body, uncontaminated by this material world. Although He appears in the same transcendental body and is Lord of the universe, it still appears that He takes His birth like an ordinary living entity. And although His body does not deteriorate like a material body, it still appears that Lord Krisna grows from childhood to boyhood and from boyhood to youth. But astonishingly enough He never ages beyond youth. At the time of the Battle of Kuruksetra, He had many grandchildren at home; or, in other words, He had sufficiently aged by material calculations. Still He looked just like a young man twenty or twenty-five years old. We never see a picture of Krisna in old age because He never grows old like us, although He is the oldest person in the whole creation--past, present, and future. Neither His body nor His intelligence ever deteriorates or changes. Therefore, it is clear that in spite of His being in the material world, He is the same unborn, eternal form of bliss and knowledge, changeless in His transcendental body and intelligence. Factually, His appearance and disappearance is like the sun's rising, moving before us, and then disappearing from our eyesight. When the sun is out of sight, we think that the sun is set, and when the sun is before our eyes, we think that the sun is on the horizon. Actually, the sun is always in its fixed position, but owing to our defective, insufficient senses, we calculate the appearance and disappearance of the sun in the sky. And because Lord Krisna's appearance and disappearance are completely different from that of any ordinary, common living entity, it is evident that He is eternal, blissful knowledge by His internal potency--and He is never contaminated by material nature. The Vedas also confirm that the Supreme Personality of Godhead is unborn yet He still appears to take His birth in multimanifestations. The Vedic supplementary literatures also confirm that even though the Lord appears to be taking His birth, He is still without change of body. In the Bhagavatam, He appears before His mother as Narayana, with four hands and the decorations of the six kinds of full opulences. His appearance in His original eternal form is His causeless mercy, bestowed upon the living entities so that they can concentrate on the Supreme Lord as He is, and not on mental concoctions or imaginations, which the impersonalist wrongly thinks the Lord's forms to be. The word maya, or atma-maya, refers to the Lord's causeless mercy, according to the Visva-kosa dictionary. The Lord is conscious of all of His previous appearances and disappearances, but a common living entity forgets everything about his past body as soon as he gets another body. He is the Lord of all living entities because He performs wonderful and superhuman activities while He is on this earth. Therefore, the Lord is always the same Absolute Truth and is without differentiation between His form and self, or between His quality and body. A question may now be raised as to why the Lord appears and disappears in this world. This is explained in the next verse.