Verse 2.1.23

Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration, Word-for-word and English translation of verse 2.1.23:

विविधानां महिम्नां हि यत्र कष्ठाः पराः पराः ।
कोटीनां पर्यवस्यन्ति समुद्रे सरितो यथा ॥ २३ ॥

vividhānāṃ mahimnāṃ hi yatra kaṣṭhāḥ parāḥ parāḥ |
koṭīnāṃ paryavasyanti samudre sarito yathā || 23 ||

vividhānām–of various kinds; mahimnām–glories; hi–certainly; yatra–where; kaṣṭhāḥ parāḥ parāḥ–the ultimate limit of excellence; koṭīnām–of countless; paryavasyanti–merge; samudre–in the ocean; saritaḥ–rivers; yathā–as.

As rivers flow into and merge with the ocean, so, countless, variegated glories, extended to their ultimate limit of excellence, culminate in the divine gopas and gopīs.

Commentary: Dig-darśinī-ṭīkā with Bhāvānuvāda

(By Śrīla Sanātana Gosvāmī himself including a deep purport of that commentary)

Śrī Uttarā recites this verse beginning with vividhānām to explain her reason for not accepting that Śrī Nanda, Yaśodā, and the other residents of Vraja, or Vrajavāsīs, should also attain a destination like others.

She says, “All the residents of Vraja possess unlimited excellent qualities, such as beauty, sweetness, erudition, etc. Their glories in relation to religion (dharma), economic development (artha), enjoyment (kāma), transcendental knowledge (vijñāna), devotion (bhakti), and pure love for the Lord (prema) have all reached the peak of perfection.” Koṭīnāṃ means that they possess glorious excellences that are unable to be innumerated, and vividhānāṃ means that these excellences are manifest in many different forms. “The glories of the Vraja residents, which reach the ultimate extent possible, are so astonishing that they are able to constantly exhilarate the ocean of Kṛṣṇa’s joy, causing it to expand millions of times over. Compared to the ocean of the Vrajavāsīs’ glories, the glories of all other goals, or sādhyas, are like a river, which flows in one direction. In other words, just as all the rivers merge into the ocean, the excellence of all that is aspired for has culminated in and entered the Vrajavāsīs such as Śrī Nanda.”