19840606 Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 10.8.11-12

The following is a lecture given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami on June 06, 1984 in New Orleans, USA [New Vṛṇdāvana, in West Virginia]. The class begins with a reading from the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10th Canto, Chapter 8, Verse 11-12.

śrī-śuka uvāca— 

evaṁ samprārthito vipraḥ sva-cikīrṣitam eva tat 
cakāra nāma-karaṇaṁ gūḍho rahasi bālayoḥ
(ŚB. 10.8.11) 

Translation: Śukadeva Gosvāmī continued: Having thus been especially requested by Nanda Mahārāja to do that which he already desired to do, Garga Muni performed the name-giving ceremony for Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma in a solitary place.

No Purport.

śrī-garga uvāca—

ayaṁ hi rohiṇī-putro ramayan suhṛdo guṇaiḥ 
ākhyāsyate rāma iti balādhikyād balaṁ viduḥ 
yadūnām apṛthag-bhāvāt saṅkarṣaṇam uśanty api
(ŚB. 10.8.12)

Translation: Garga Muni said: This child, the son of Rohiṇī, will give all happiness to His relatives and friends by His transcendental qualities. Therefore He will be known as Rāma. And because He will manifest extraordinary bodily strength, He will also be known as Bala. Moreover, because He unites two families — Vasudeva’s family and the family of Nanda Mahārāja — He will be known as Saṅkarṣaṇa.

*repetition* 

Purport: Baladeva was actually the son of Devakī, but He was transferred from Devakī’s womb to that of Rohiṇī. This fact was not disclosed. According to a statement in the Hari-vaṁśa:

pratyuvāca tato rāmaḥ sarvāṁs tān abhitaḥ sthitān 
yādaveṣv api sarveṣu bhavanto mama vallabhāḥ

Garga Muni did disclose to Nanda Mahārāja that Balarāma would be known as Saṅkarṣaṇa because of uniting two families — the yadu-vaṁśa and the vaṁśa of Nanda Mahārāja — one of which was known as kṣatriya and the other as vaiśya. Both families had the same original forefather, the only difference being that Nanda Mahārāja was born of a vaiśya wife whereas Vasudeva was born of a kṣatriya wife. Later, Nanda Mahārāja married a vaiśya wife, and Vasudeva married a kṣatriya wife. So although the families of Nanda Mahārāja and Vasudeva both came from the same father, they were divided as kṣatriya and vaiśya. Now Baladeva united them, and therefore He was known as Saṅkarṣaṇa.

Thus end the purports, translations of Verse Text 11 and 12, Chapter 8, Canto 10 of the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, by His Divine Grace Śrīla Abhaycarana Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda in the matter of “Lord Kṛṣṇa Shows The Universal Form.”

Jayapatākā Swami: Here the description of the naming Balarāma, Kṛṣṇa’s older brother is given. Balarāma, because He is older brother, therefore He is being named first. Thereafter, Kṛṣṇa gets named. The name they give Kṛṣṇa is?

Bhakta Tim?

Bhakta Tim: I don’t know. 

Jayapatākā Swami: You don’t know? What do you think?

Bhakta Tim: Lord Caitanya?

Jayapatākā Swami: No. Anyone knows what name they gave for Kṛṣṇa?

Reply: Vasudeva?

Reply: Nanda-nandana? 

Reply: Kṛṣṇa?

Jayapatākā Swami: (applauds) (Laughter)

Comment: Tricky. (laughter) 

Jayapatākā Swami: The name He was given was Kṛṣṇa. (laughter) That’s why we call Kṛṣṇa. He was given idānīṁ kṛṣṇatāṁ gataḥ. So, Kṛṣṇa, the name Kṛṣṇa was given to Him by Garga. But of course, that name always existed. Garga Muni knew that this was Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma, as will be described later.

So, Rāma means He gives happiness. He is the Supreme enjoyer. When we serve the Lord, who is the Supreme enjoyer, not only do… does… actually we become happy. This is the wonderful secret, “That by serving the Lord who is the Supreme Enjoyer, we actually become happy.”

By serving our own whimsical desires, our own uh material inclinations, we simply become miserable. But, by serving the desires of the Lord, then we become happy. So, the method of getting transcendental happiness is serving the lotus feet of Lord Balarāma. No one can approach Kṛṣṇa without the mercy of Balarāma. No one can approach Lord Caitanya without the mercy of Lord Nityānanda Prabhu. So, of course, they’re very merciful. So… but we should not try to jump over. That’s why the guru is considered to be the representative of Balarāma, or Nityānanda, and to approach the Lord, we cannot jump over the guru. We have to go through the guru-paramparā. In this way, approaching Balarāma, or Nityānanda Prabhu and thereby achieving the shelter of Lord Kṛṣṇa, Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu.

Also, because Lord Balarāma has got extraordinary bodily strength… He has all transce… not only bodily strength… of course he is saying this for Nanda Mahārāja, but actually Lord Balarāma, He is the first expansion of Kṛṣṇa. There is no difference between Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma. Basically, they have everything exactly the same, potential the same, pastimes except Kṛṣṇa is the original. He is the original, and Balarāma is His first expansion. Kṛṣṇa is black. Balarāma is white, transcendentally white. So, that Kṛṣṇa Balarāma, they are glorified by, by Jayadeva at his… together. They appeared at the same time. The original personality and His original expansion.

Nārāyaṇa expansions, the Mahā-Viṣṇu expansions, these are all coming from Lord Balarāma. So, Balarāma, He is the source of all spiritual strength. He is the… in His form as Saṅkarṣaṇa, in His form He is maintaining all of the material and spiritual universes. They’re all being held up by a fraction of the strength of Lord Balarāma. So, also we can get spiritual strength for serving Lord Kṛṣṇa from Lord Balarāma, in Kali-yuga in His incarnation as Lord Nityānanda.

The… Someone may say, “How is Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma brothers?” How are they brothers? From where cometh?

Reply: Because they have the same father.

Jayapatākā Swami: Anything else?

Reply: They were born to the same father

Jayapatākā Swami: Same father.

Reply: Same grandfather.

Jayapatākā Swami: Same grandfa… yes same father, yes same grandfather too. You’re saying that they are not the same father?

Reply: Rohiṇī-suta.

Reply: Same mother also. He transferred?!

Jayapatākā Swami: Right, same mother, same father. Rohiṇī is another wife of Lord Vasudeva… of King Vasudeva. But actually, it describes here, Baladeva was originally in the womb of Devakī. He prepared everything for Kṛṣṇa coming, and then He transferred over to Rohiṇī, and they thought that Devakī had a miscarriage then. So, actually, He was first in the womb of Devakī, so in that sense also, the same mother. And Vasudeva in either case is the same father.

So actually, here Prabhupāda mentions that, “The Baladeva was actually the son of Devakī, but He was transferred from Devakī's womb to that of Rohiṇī. This fact was not disclosed.”

Everyone should listen to these purports, you see. A lot of little… in one sentence there, so many secret information has been revealed. Now Nanda Mahārāja was also of course a brother, half-brother with Vasudeva. So, Nanda-Mahārāja, in that sense, Kṛṣṇa was also a brother, but a cousin-brother, from Nanda Mahārāja’s point of view with Balarāma. But even today in India, if you ask somebody, actually they’ll come and say, “He is here. Well, he is my, he is my brother.”

“You just mean he lives in the same village? That kind of brother?”

“No, no. My own real brother. Blood brother. My own brother. My own father’s brother’s wife’s brother’s son. My own brother.” (Laughter) If it’s your cousin-brother… because it’s all joint families, they all live together, if it’s your own cousin, we consider first cousin, that’s full on brother. No difference. In some of the families, there is fifty people live together. Say the father has five brothers. They all have their wives. And all have, each of have five kids, ten kids, become, sum up fifty-five family members all live in one big compound. And they call the, the children, they remember, “This is my father, and he is my, my older…” Older uncle than my father is called jeṭhā, and the younger is called kākā. But they call them all as children, and sometimes they even forget that who is… “Which is mine? Which is brothers’ and sisters’?” It merges, so close.

Of course, here in the West, family life is already broken up. There it’s very natural that if the father leaves, the older brother, whoever the oldest brother is, alive, he takes charge of the whole family. Nobody doing unless he approves of it. And that’s what has kept Vedic tradition everything very strong for so long is, this very strong family. Now, the Indian Government by… they charge more taxes on joint Hindu families since the past twenty-five years than they do on individual families. So by economic force, people are being split apart. In this way, the government can spread socialism and other things. Because the strong Hindu family unit was so powerful that nobody could break it. So then Kali-yuga is breaking it.

But any case, Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma from everybody’s angle of vision, either they had real transcendental vision or Vasudeva’s vision, or from Nanda Mahārāja’s vision, they’re all… Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma both brothers, and that same relationship was maintained between Lord Nityānanda and Lord Caitanya that They accepted each other as practically like brothers. Lord Nit… appeared before Lord Caitanya; He was older. These are all allowed for transcendental pastimes to be exchanged.

The devotees, when they do saṅkīrtana, they should meditate on the lotus feet of Balarāma and Kṛṣṇa, of Nitāi-Gaura, to get special strength. When there is a difficulty, then they can take shelter and chant the holy names and uh pray that they can get more strength for serving the lotus feet. This is a special meaning also of Baladeva, Balarāma. Kṛṣṇa uh… Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura prayed, “hā hā prabhu nityānanda, premānanda sukhī kṛpābalokana koro āmi boro duḥkhī - that “Lord Nityānanda, You are filled with transcendental ecstasies. I’m always in a miserable material uh suffering mentality. Please have Your mercy upon me that I can uh just immediately because I’m so unfortuate.”

Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare
Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare

Question?

Devotee: If Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma are both born of the same father, why is it that Kṛṣṇa is sometimes said to be a vaiśya, and Balarāma to be a kṣatriya? 

Jayapatākā Swami: Because everyone thought that Kṛṣṇa was born from Nanda Mahārāja. And it explains here that Nanda Mahārāja married that, that as Lokanātha was explaining, that they have the same grandfather, that relationship. Nanda Mahārāja and Vasudeva were born from the same father. They are brothers, but Nanda Mahārāja’s mother was a vaiśya. In previous, as a King, or any, they can marry any good woman, no matter what particular background she had. She had obviously a vaiśya background.

So Nanda Mahārāja, he could’ve gone either way, with a kṣatriya father and a vaiśya mother, he could’ve become a vaiśya, or he could’ve become a kṣatriya. He had a choice, you know. Or he could you know, to be… or he has to do a lot of austerities to become a brāhmaṇa. But he took up the occupation of a vaiśya, and he married a vaiśya wife. And so, from practical point of view, everyone thought that Kṛṣṇa was the son of Nanda, and that’s the way He was brought up and everything, so He was called, you know, acted like a vaiśya. But Rohiṇī is the wife of Vasudeva, but she was in exile.

So, she was tak… she took shelter in Nanda Mahārāja’s house and Baladeva was known right from the beginning as the son of Vasudeva and Rohiṇī. And so, He was a kṣatriya, but He also played like a cowherd boy. His plow… always carries His plow. (kṛṣi-go-rakṣya-vāṇijyaṁ).

One more?

Question: So you said that Rohiṇī was… she took shelter in the… Nanda Mahārāja’s house. So was she… (inaudible) …or Vasudeva’s?

Jayapatākā Swami: Vasudeva’s in the prison.

Reply: He’s still, even after the birth… (inaudible)

Jayapatākā Swami: His situation was not very favorable.

Reply: So she stayed with… she stayed in the house of Nanda Mahārāja.

Jayapatākā Swami: She remained for quite some time in the… with Nanda Mahārāja because of the dangerous political situation with the kṣatriya king. It was dangerous for Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma, so for Balarāma’s interest, she stayed away. To protect her offspring, she remained separate, to protect Balarāma, her life. It wasn’t… Vasudeva and Devakī’s situation was somewhat difficult. (inaudible)

Question: What are the social rules for marriage of one caste and another? I understand there’s a lot of restriction, a woman, who she can marry, below or above her caste, and for a man also.

Jayapatākā Swami: Well, in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, it’s not that applicable.

Reply: Because I mean in traditional varṇāśrama, there’s… (inaudible) …marriage.

Jayapatākā Swami: Normally a woman could marry up, but normally wasn’t thought good if the woman marry down, or if the man married up, but, you know, it did happen sometimes. Pratiloma and… there’s two names for it. So, the woman marrying you know, a hu… a man marrying a woman from a tradition… a lower tradition, wasn’t considered to be a as you know… it was… it was to some extent acceptable, but the offspring would be watched to see, you know, what qualities they had… to see you know. They were considered p… they were considered to be pratiloma offspring, or whatever.

Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare
Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare

I’m going off to Atlanta today. We want to try to increase their service as far as possi…

Hare Kṛṣṇa!

Devotees: Hare Kṛṣṇa!

Jayapatākā Swami: Jaya Śrī Śrī Rādhā Rādhākānta, Jaya Jagannātha Subhadrā Balarāma kī...!

Devotees: Jaya!