SB 1.1.17 (1962)
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
TEXT No. 17
Yaysya karmani udarani parigeetani suribhih Bruhih nah sraddhadhananam leelaya dadhatah kalam
ENGLISH SYNONYMS
Tasaya—His, Karmani—transcendental acts, Udarani—magnanimous, Parigeetani—ventilated, Suribhih—by the great souls, Bruhih—please speak, Nah—unto us, Sraddhadhananam—ready to receive with respect, Leelayah—pastimes, Dadahtah—advented, Kala—incarnations.
TRANSLATION
His transcendental acts are very magnanimous and great learned sages like (Narada) and others do narrate them. Please, therefore, speak to us, who are all eager to hear them, about His adventures which He performed in His various incarnations.
PURPORT
The Personality of Godhead is never inactive as it is suggested by some less intelligent persons. His works are magnificient and maganimous at the same time. His creations both material and spiritual all are wonderful things with all variegatedness and they are described nicely by such liberated souls as Srila Narada, Vyasa, Valmiki, Devala, Asita, Madhya, Sri Chaitanya, Ramanuja, Vishnuswami, Nimbarka, Sridhara, Viswanath, Valadeva, Bhaktivinode, Siddhanta Saraswati and many such learned and self realised souls. His creations both material and spiritual both are full of opulence, beauty and knowledge but the spiritual realm is still more magnificient on account of its being full of knowledge, blissful and eternally existent. The material creations are manifested for sometime as perverted shadow of the spiritual kingdom like the cinematographic focus on screen and attracts people of less intelligent calibre who are attracted by false things. Such foolish men have no information of the real reality and take it for granted that the false material manifestation is all in all. But more intelligent men guided by the sages like Vyasa and Narada know that the eternal kingdom of God is more delightful larger and eternally full of bliss and knowledge. Those who are not conversant with the activities of the Lord in His transcendental realm are sometimes favoured by the Lord by His adventures as Incarnation wherein He displays the eternal bliss of His association in the transcendental realm. By such activities He attracts the conditioned soul of the material world where some of them are engaged in the false enjoyment of the material senses and others are engaged in the business of negativing the real life in the spiritual world. Such less intelligent persons are known as Karmis or the fruitive workers and the other is known as the Jnanins or dry mental speculators just to make an analysis of the material elements for distinguishing matter and spirit. And above these two classes of men there is the transcendental one known as the Satwatas or the Devotees who are not busy either in the rampant material activities nor in the business of material elimination. They are engaged in the positive service of the Lord and thereby derive the highest spiritual benefit unknown to the Karmis and Jnanins.
As the Supreme controller of both the material and spiritual worlds, the Lord has different incarnations of unlimited categories. Incarnations like Brahma, Rudra, Manu, Prithu, Vyasa etc. are His material qualitative incarnations but His incarnations like Rama, Narasingha, Varaha, Vamana, etc. are His transcendental incarnations. Lord Shri Krishna is the Fountain Head of all incarnations and He is therefore the cause of all causes.