Verse 2.18.204

Bengali text, Devanagari and Unicode transliteration of verse 2.18.204:

কমলা, পার্বতী, দযা, মহা-নারায ণীআপনে হৈলা প্রভু জগত-জননী ॥ ২০৪ ॥

कमला, पार्वती, दया, महा-नाराय णीआपने हैला प्रभु जगत-जननी ॥ २०४ ॥

kamalā, pārvatī, dayā, mahā-nārāya ṇīāpane hailā prabhu jagata-jananī || 204 ||

kamala, parvati, daya, maha-naraya niapane haila prabhu jagata-janani (204)

English translation:

(204) The Lord personally manifest as the mother of the universe in the form of Kamalā, Pārvatī, Dayā, and Mahā-Nārāyaṇī.

Commentary: Gauḍīya-bhāṣya by Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura:

The Supreme Personality of Godhead is the object of worship. He is the maintainer of everyone. When His energy becomes inclined towards His service and displays her variegated pastimes, she helps revive the constitutional position of the living entities. And when she directs her covering and throwing potencies to bewilder the living entities, and the conditioned living entities accept this with respect, she then becomes the provider of the living entities’ material enjoyment and temporary benefit. Although the manifestation of the Lord’s pastimes as a mother in the house of Śrī Candraśekhara refutes the argument that these pastimes are unfit to perpetually exist, the Lord accepted the mood of a devotee to demonstrate that such a form was not the worshipable Supreme Lord’s personal form. It is not that simply because Śrī Gaurasundara displayed the ideal example of enacting the pastimes of His various energies that

He is the object of the subordinate conditioned soul’s enjoyment. It is seen in the ideal example of a mother in this world that when her child accepts service from her, the child is unable to properly reciprocate because of its undeveloped consciousness. When the mother serves her child like a maidservant, her child is completely unable to serve her at that time. There is no possibility for the child to serve its mother at that point other than by accepting her service. When the child’s consciousness is developed, it also develops a strong desire to become the master. Then also the child cannot understand that his mother has been serving him since his birth and that he should clear his debt to her by serving her.

When such a mentality does awaken in the child, it no longer exhibits a propensity to enjoy material existence. Yet the illusory energy of Viṣṇu is so powerful that she does not award this qualification to everyone. The Supreme Lord can never become a servant or a maidservant. He is always the Lord and the enjoyer. His subordinate energies are His servants and maidservants. Those who desire to transform the Supreme Lord into a servant or maidservant are bewildered by the illusory energy of Viṣṇu.

Lord Viṣṇu is never to be enjoyed by the conditioned living entities. Therefore, by accepting this material world, which is the transformation of the Lord’s external energy, as the abode of enjoyment, the living entities, who are transformations of the marginal energy, have ended up becoming masters of the material world, and while establishing the Śākta philosophy they have taken leave from the path of spiritual life. When the conditioned souls feel that material enjoyment is their goal of life, then they engage the Supreme Lord as the supplier of their sense gratification. As a result, they become entangled in the ropes of material enjoyment. In Gaurasundara’s pastimes of accepting the mood of a devotee, His exhibition of pastimes as the mother of the universe is to demonstrate that service to the energetic Viṣṇu is the only propensity of the ādyā- śakti, which is the worshipable goddess of the followers of Śākta philosophy. Viṣṇu is never to be considered the energy; the energy is always under the shelter of the Supreme Lord. Gaurasundara manifested

such pastimes to confirm that the energies inclined towards the Lord’s service are most favorable to the energetic and that the external illusory energy’s display of manipulating energies is incompatible with the manipulations of the internal energy.