Verse 2.66

Bengali text, Devanagari and Unicode transliteration of verse 2.66:

“এই নবদ্বীপে, বাপ! যত অধ্যাপক কৃষ্ণ-ভক্তি বাখানিতে সবে হয ‘বক’ ॥ ৬৬ ॥

“एइ नवद्वीपे, बाप! यत अध्यापक कृष्ण-भक्ति वाखानिते सबे हय ‘बक’ ॥ ६६ ॥

“ei navadvīpe, bāpa! yata adhyāpaka kṛṣṇa-bhakti vākhānite sabe haya ‘baka’ || 66 ||

“ei navadvipe, bapa! yata adhyapaka krsna-bhakti vakhanite sabe haya ‘baka’ (66)

English translation:

(66) “In this Navadvīpa, my dear, the teachers all act dumb when there’s opportunity to glorify the devotional service of Kṛṣṇa.

Commentary: Gauḍīya-bhāṣya by Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura:

The word baka, or baka-vratī, is explained as follows: “An imposter brāhmaṇa, the follower of the ‘vow of the duck,’ is he who always looks down to make a show of humility, who is cruel, and who pretends to be submissive.” Therefore the word baka in this verse refers to a person who refrains from speaking in order to cheat others. Although one is expert in useless discussions on topics not related to Kṛṣṇa, or one manifests millions of mouths while describing the scriptures in nondevotional ways, in spite of knowing that devotional service to Kṛṣṇa is always and in all respects the undisputed purport of the scriptures, when it comes to explaining this, due to the cheating propensity, one may exhibit silence like a duplicitous, cheating, cunning, imitation, greedy, fish-eating crane.