Verse 4.10

Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration, Word-for-word and English translation of verse 4.10:

वीत-राग-भय-क्रोधा मन्-मया माम् उपाश्रिताः ।
बहवो ज्ञान-तपसा पूता मद्-भावम् आगताः ॥ १० ॥

vīta-rāga-bhaya-krodhā man-mayā mām upāśritāḥ |
bahavo jñāna-tapasā pūtā mad-bhāvam āgatāḥ || 10 ||

vīta–devoid; rāga–of attachment; bhaya–fear; krodhāḥ–and anger; mat-mayāḥ–absorbed in Me; mām–to Me; upāśritāḥ–surrendered; bahavaḥ–many (devotees); jñāna-tapasā–by austerities (in the form of cultivating knowledge); pūtāḥ–purified; mad-bhāvam–prema-bhakti for Me; āgatāḥ–attained.

Being devoid of attachment, fear and anger, their concentration fixed on Me, being completely surrendered to Me, and purified by austerity in the form of knowledge, many devotees have attained prema-bhakti for Me.

Commentary: Sārārtha-Varṣiṇī Ṭīkā

(By Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura; the innermost intention of the commentary named ‘the shower of essential meanings’)

Śrī Bhagavān says, “O Arjuna, it is not that only they who have full knowledge of My birth and activities and who are present during My current avatāra attain Me. Even in previous ages, I was attained by those endowed with transcendental knowledge of the birth and activities of My incarnations.” To explain this, the present verse beginning with vīta-rāga is being spoken. Jñāna-tapasā means ‘purified by austerity in the form of knowledge’. In the opinion of the great spiritual authority, Śrī Rāmānuja, Śrī Kṛṣṇa is saying, “This knowledge is realization of the absolute nature of My birth and activities. People attain Me when they have been purified by realizing My birth and activities in terms of the characteristics described earlier.” In other words, “While trying with determination to realize the eternal nature of My birth and activities, they attain prema-bhakti to Me. However, they are first purified by the austerity of tolerating the burning poison of the serpents of various types of wrong opinions, misguided logic and fallacious arguments.”

In Śrī Rāmānujācārya’s commentary he cites the Śruti statement “tasya dhīrāḥ parijānanti yonim–one who is fixed, or intelligent, has full knowledge of the nature of Śrī Bhagavān’s birth.”

Vīta-rāga refers to those who have given up attachment to persons who engage in mundane talk and who advocate bogus opinions. “My devotees do not become angry with them nor do they fear them. If one asks why, the answer is that they are intensely absorbed in deliberating and meditating on My birth and activities, and in hearing and chanting about them.” Mad-bhāvam means ‘prema for Me’.

Commentary: Sārārtha-Varṣiṇī Prakāśikā-vṛtti

(By Śrīla Bhaktivedānta Nārāyaṇa Gosvāmī Mahārāja; the explanation that illuminates the commentary named Sārārtha-varṣiṇī)

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura quotes Kṛṣṇa as saying, “There are three reasons why foolish people are not inclined to deliberate on the transcendental and supremely pure nature of My birth, activities and form: (1) attachment to other [or worldly] objects, (2) fear and (3) anger. Those whose intelligence is tightly bound by mundane thoughts are so deeply absorbed in materialism and attached to it that they do not accept that an eternal entity known as cit-tattva (transcendental reality) exists. According to such persons, svabhāva (nature itself) is the Absolute Truth. Some of them maintain that inert matter is the eternal cause and the source of spirit. The jaḍavādīs (who declare that inert matter is the all-in-all), the svabhāvavādīs (who support the theory that everything is occurring due to the inherent properties within all phenomena), and the caitanya-hīna-vidhivādīs (who advocate a system of ethics that is based on the conception that there is no consciousness) are all impelled by an attachment to their respective theories. Being deluded by objects other than Transcendental Reality, they gradually become bereft of any transcendental attachment to the Supreme Absolute Reality.

“Although some thinkers do accept spiritual principles as eternal, they can have no realization of them at all, because they reject the very principles by which transcendental knowledge is easily attained and perpetually take shelter of mundane logic and reasoning. Whatever attributes and activities they see in inert matter they designate as unreal (asat) and very carefully abandon them. Thus, in the name of identifying what is uncontaminated by inert matter, they imagine an Absolute Reality (brahma) that is beyond definition. This, however, is nothing more than an indirect manifestation of My māyā;it is not My eternal form. Later they give up meditating on My actual form (svarūpa) and worshipping My deity form, fearing that this may cause them to come under the influence of material conceptions. Because of this fear, they lose the opportunity to realize the true form of the Absolute Truth and are deprived of pure love for Me. There are others who, being unable to discern any substance beyond matter, become possessed by anger. Impelled by such anger, they maintain that the Absolute Reality is just a void, nothingness and the complete annihilation of all existence. The doctrine of the Buddhists and Jains has appeared from this principle of nihilism, or nirvāṇa.

“Many wise men, however, do become free from attachment, fear and anger and see nothing but Me everywhere. They are genuinely surrendered to Me, purified by the fire of transcendental knowledge and by the penance of tolerating the burning poison of false reasoning. Thus they have attained pure, sublime love for Me.”