Potency and Richness of Srimad Bhagavatam Experience in the Association of Devotees

2016-05-24
Srimad Bhagavatam 10.82.01 - Potency and Richness of Srimad Bhagavatam Experience in the Association of Devotees (download mp3)
by Jayadvaita Swami at ISKCON Chowpatty
www.iskcondesiretree.com





SB 10.82.1
sri-suka uvaca
athaikada dvaravatyam
 vasato rama-krsnayoh
suryoparagah su-mahan
 asit kalpa-ksaye yatha


Translation: 
Sukadeva Gosvami said: Once, while Balarama and Krsna were living in Dvaraka, there occurred a great eclipse of the sun, just as if the end of Lord Brahma’s day had come.

Purport: 
As Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura points out, the words atha and ekada are commonly used in Sanskrit literature to introduce a new topic. Here they especially indicate that the reunion of the Yadus and Vrsnis at Kuruksetra is being narrated out of chronological sequence.

Srila Sanatana Gosvami explains in his Vaisnava-tosani commentary that the events of this Eighty-second Chapter occur after Lord Baladeva’s visit to Vraja (Chapter 65) and before Maharaja Yudhisthira’s Rajasuya sacrifice (Chapter 74). This must be so, the acarya reasons, since during the eclipse at Kuruksetra all the Kurus, including Dhrtarastra, Yudhisthira, Bhisma and Drona, met in friendship and happily shared the company of Sri Krsna. At the Rajasuya-yajña, on the other hand, Duryodhana’s jealousy against the Pandavas became irrevocably inflamed. Soon after this, Duryodhana challenged Yudhisthira and his brothers to the gambling match, in which he cheated them of their kingdom and exiled them to the forest. Right after the Pandavas’ return from exile, the great Battle of Kuruksetra took place, during which Bhisma and Drona were killed. So it is not logically possible for the solar eclipse at Kuruksetra to have happened after the Rajasuya sacrifice.