Verse 1.7.3

Bengali text, Devanagari and Unicode transliteration of verse 1.7.3:

হেন মতে নবদ্বীপে শ্রী-গৌরসুন্দর বাল্য-লীলা-ছলে করে প্রকাশ বিস্তর ॥ ৩ ॥

हेन मते नवद्वीपे श्री-गौरसुन्दर बाल्य-लीला-छले करे प्रकाश विस्तर ॥ ३ ॥

hena mate navadvīpe śrī-gaurasundara bālya-līlā-chale kare prakāśa vistara || 3 ||

hena mate navadvipe sri-gaurasundara balya-lila-chale kare prakasa vistara (3)

English translation:

(3) In this way Śrī Gaurasundara manifested His childhood pastimes in Navadvīpa.

Commentary: Gauḍīya-bhāṣya by Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura:

The words kare prakāśa vistara indicate that the mischievous pastimes that Śrī Gaurasundara exhibited in His childhood had two purposes. The

direct purpose was to attract His devotees and constantly increase their ecstasy, and the indirect purpose was to confirm the temporary nature of mundane objects of sense gratification by destroying them in a mischievous way. Since accepting and rejecting mundane objects creates various disturbances, obstructing or minimizing the attempt to enjoy such objects is certainly for the eternal benefit of the conditioned souls. A conditioned soul’s constitutional duties are transformed into mental speculation due to his external perception. As a result, rather than serving the Lord, one’s propensity for enjoying the material world increases. In the absence of this propensity, one’s spiritual constitutional engagement of devotional service, in the form of liberation from material enjoyment and endeavor for achieving Kṛṣṇa, becomes manifest.