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ŚB 2.9.38

Devanagari

श्रीशुक उवाच
सम्प्रदिश्यैवमजनो जनानां परमेष्ठिनम् ।
पश्यतस्तस्य तद् रूपमात्मनो न्यरुणद्धरि: ॥ ३८ ॥

Text

śrī-śuka uvāca
sampradiśyaivam ajano
janānāṁ parameṣṭhinam
paśyatas tasya tad rūpam
ātmano nyaruṇad dhariḥ

Synonyms

śrī-śukaḥ uvāca — Śrī Śukadeva Gosvāmī said; sampradiśya — fully instructing Brahmājī; evam — thus; ajanaḥ — the Supreme Lord; janānām — of the living entities; parameṣṭhinam — unto the supreme leader, Brahmā; paśyataḥ — while he was seeing; tasya — His; tat rūpam — that transcendental form; ātmanaḥ — of the Absolute; nyaruṇat — disappeared; hariḥ — the Lord, the Personality of Godhead.

Translation

Śukadeva Gosvāmī said to Mahārāja Parīkṣit: The Supreme Personality of Godhead, Hari, after being seen in His transcendental form, instructing Brahmājī, the leader of the living entities, disappeared.

Purport

In this verse it is clearly mentioned that the Lord is ajanaḥ, or the Supreme Person, and that He was showing His transcendental form (ātmano rūpam) to Brahmājī while instructing him in the summarization of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam in four verses. He is ajanaḥ, or the Supreme Person, amongst janānām, or all persons. All living entities are individual persons, and amongst all such persons Lord Hari is supreme, as confirmed in the śruti-mantra, nityo nityānāṁ cetanaś cetanānām. So there is no place for impersonal features in the transcendental world as there are impersonal features in the material world. Whenever there is cetana, or knowledge, the personal feature comes in. In the spiritual world everything is full of knowledge, and therefore everything in the transcendental world, the land, the water, the tree, the mountain, the river, the man, the animal, the bird — everything — is of the same quality, namely cetana, and therefore everything there is individual and personal. Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam gives us this information as the supreme Vedic literature, and it was personally instructed by the Supreme Personality of Godhead to Brahmājī so that the leader of the living entities might broadcast the message to all in the universe in order to teach the supreme knowledge of bhakti-yoga. Brahmājī in his turn instructed Nārada, his beloved son, the same message of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and Nārada, in his turn, taught the same to Vyāsadeva, who again taught it to Śukadeva Gosvāmī. Through Śukadeva Gosvāmī’s grace and by the mercy of Mahārāja Parīkṣit we are all given Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam perpetually to learn the science of the Absolute Personality of Godhead, Lord Kṛṣṇa.