Verse 2.4.83-84

Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration, Word-for-word and English translation of verse 2.4.83-84:

अस्मिन्न् अस्मिन्न् इहेहैव भवे भावी मद्-उन्मुखः ।
इत्य् आशया तवात्यन्तं नर्तितोऽस्मि सदाज्ञावत् ॥ ८३ ॥
छलं च न लभे किञ्चिद् येनाद्यं परिपालयन् ।
निबन्धं स्व-कृतं भ्रातर् आनयाम्य् आत्मनः पदम् ॥ ८४ ॥

asminn asminn ihehaiva bhave bhāvī mad-unmukhaḥ |
ity āśayā tavātyantaṃ nartito'smi sadājñāvat || 83 ||
chalaṃ ca na labhe kiñcid yenādyaṃ paripālayan |
nibandhaṃ sva-kṛtaṃ bhrātar ānayāmy ātmanaḥ padam || 84 ||

asmin asmin–in whichever; iha iha–in this world; eva–indeed; bhave–in material existence; bhāvī–you may be; mad-unmukhaḥ–favorable to Me; iti–thus; āśayā–with this hope; tava–for you; atyantam–endlessly; nartitaḥ–danced; asmi–I am; sadā–always; ajña-vat–like a fool; chalam–a pretext; ca–and; na–not; labhe–I find; kiñcit–any; yena–by which; ādyam–today; paripālayan–while protecting; nibandham–the statements of the Vedas; svakṛtam–which I Myself wrote; bhrātaḥ–O brother; ānayāmi–I can bring; ātmanaḥ–My own; padam–to the place.

“Perhaps in this lifetime you will turn towards Me.” With this desire, I danced like a fool in every single birth that you took. Dear brother, I could not find any pretext whatsoever to bring you here without transgressing My own previous commands set down as Vedic laws.

Commentary: Dig-darśinī-ṭīkā with Bhāvānuvāda

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

Śrī Bhagavān always eagerly awaits the living entities of the world. To describe this, the Lord speaks the verse beginning with asmin.

Śrī Bhagavān says, “‘In this very lifetime, you will turn toward Me’–with this hope I would dance like a fool in every single birth that you took.” The term asminn eva implies, “‘In this present life, you will turn towards Me’–this desire would keep Me in a constant state of anxiety.” The word asmin, meaning ‘in this one,’ has been used twice in this verse. Though both occurrences convey the same meaning, the repetition should be understood to indicate the Lord’s longing.

Another way of understanding the repetition is that the Lord is saying, “If you do not turn towards Me in this lifetime, thus accepting different births in the future, then I, also, will have to be affected.” Both meanings are therefore appropriate. He says, “‘You will turn towards Me in this very lifetime’–with this hope I danced like a fool for many days.” Śrī Bhagavān, in comparing Himself to a fool, shows His intense eagerness to see Gopa-kumāra face to face. (Dig-darśinīṭīkā of verse 83 ends here.)

Śrī Gopa-kumāra might question, “You are all powerful. If You were always so anxious, desiring to bring me to You, then why did You not come Yourself to rescue me and personally take me to Vaikuṇṭha?” In reply, the Lord speaks the verse beginning with chalam.

Śrī Bhagavān says, “I could not find any means to attract you. In order to bring you here, I could not even use the kīrtana of My names as an excuse to transgress the regulative principles–principles I Myself established in the Vedas.”

Alternatively, the Lord is saying, “I did not have even the tiniest opportunity to use any trick to violate the Vedic regulative principles, which are My own words. O brother, I was therefore not able to bring you to Vaikuṇṭha. You never spoke My name (nāma-kīrtana)–either indirectly or even in jest–and thus you did not establish any relationship with Me. If you had, then I could have used that relationship to overstep My own Vedic rules and regulations and attract you and then bring you here to Vaikuṇṭha, just as I did with Ajāmila. Alas! When this never happened, I was always distressed with fear that you would fall into undesirable association and develop bad habits.”