Bhaktivedanta VedaBase: Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 11.1.13-15

krīḍantas tān upavrajya

kumārā yadu-nandanāḥ

upasańgṛhya papracchur

avinītā vinīta-vat

te veṣayitvā strī-veṣaiḥ

sāmbaḿ jāmbavatī-sutam

eṣā pṛcchati vo viprā

antarvatny asitekṣaṇā

praṣṭuḿ vilajjatī sākṣāt

prabrūtāmogha-darśanāḥ

prasoṣyantī putra-kāmā

kiḿ svit sañjanayiṣyati

SYNONYMS

krīḍantaḥ — playing; tān — them (the sages); upavrajya — approaching; kumārāḥ — the young boys; yadu-nandanāḥ — the sons of the Yadu dynasty; upasańgṛhya — taking hold of the sages' feet; papracchuḥ — they asked; avinītāḥ — not humble; vinīta-vat — acting as if humble; te — they; veṣayitvā — dressing; strī-veṣaiḥ — in a woman's clothes and ornaments; sāmbam jāmbavatī-sutam — Sāmba, the son of Jāmbavatī; eṣā — this woman; pṛcchati — is asking; vaḥ — you; viprāḥ — O learned brāhmaṇas; antarvatnī — pregnant; asita-īkṣanā — black-eyed; praṣṭum — to ask; vilajjatī — embarrassed; sākṣāt — directly herself; prabrūta — please speak; amogha-darśanāḥ — O you whose vision is never bewildered; prasoṣyantī — she who is just about to give birth; putra-kāmā — and desirous of getting a son; kim svit — what indeed (a son or daughter?); sañjanayiṣyati — will she give birth to.

TRANSLATION

To that holy place, the young boys of the Yadu dynasty had brought Sāmba, son of Jāmbavatī, dressed in woman's garb. Playfully approaching the great sages gathered there, the boys grabbed hold of the sages' feet and impudently asked them with feigned humility, "O learned brāhmaṇas, this black-eyed pregnant woman has something to ask you. She is too embarrassed to inquire for herself. She is just about to give birth and is very desirous of having a son. Since all of you are great sages with infallible vision, please tell us whether her child will be a boy or a girl."

PURPORT

Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī has made the following comment: "The impudent behavior of the young Yadus toward the sages headed by Nārada, who were all brāhmaṇas and devotees of the Lord, was a display of deviation from the path of Lord Kṛṣṇa. Similarly, although the prākṛta-sahajiyās think of themselves as intimate associates of Kṛṣṇa, the supremely merciful Lord's determination is perfectly correct in working to finish such false devotees. Such impostors actually never accept real service to Kṛṣṇa. The yadu-kumāras' deception is termed 'seemingly humble,' meaning that in fact they were anything but humble. Therefore, the ridiculing of Vaiṣṇavas by the Lord's family resulted in a great offense against the devotees of the Lord."

A similar incident occurred during the pastimes of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu when His own mother offended Śrī Advaita Ācārya. Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu personally rectified this offense against a great Vaiṣṇava, and thus the Lord showed His magnanimity. Lord Kṛṣṇa's pastime of destroying the Yadu dynasty is also a demonstration of His mercy to His devotees.

Believing the brāhmaṇas, Vaiṣṇavas and ṛṣis to be foolishly lacking knowledge in material affairs of sense gratification, the yadu-kumāras dressed Sāmba, the son of Jāmbavatī, as a woman and tried to mock the saintly assembly. Lord Kṛṣṇa wanted to teach that such an offense committed against great devotees by His associate Sāmba would be the cause of the Yadu dynasty's destruction, all as part of His līlā.

In modern times such misbehavior has also manifested itself within the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava community. Unauthorized persons have initiated the process of deceitfully bestowing a woman's dress on their followers. This process is to be counted as a variety of aparādha, or offense against Kṛṣṇa. Such an attempt to cheapen and ridicule devotional service to Kṛṣṇa is certainly caused by envy toward the real Vaiṣṇavas, who are faithfully engaged in devotional service according to the rules and regulations of the Vedic literature. Thus Rūpa Gosvāmī has said:

śruti-smṛti-purāṇādi-

pañcarātra-vidhiḿ vinā

aikāntikī harer bhaktir

utpātāyaiva kalpate

[BRS 1.2.101]

"If one wants to demonstrate his great devotion to the Supreme Lord but his process of devotional service violates the standard rules of revealed scriptures such as śruti, smṛti, Purāṇas and Nārada-pañcarātra, then his alleged love of Godhead will simply disturb society by misleading people from the auspicious path of spiritual advancement." (Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu 1.2.101) The taking of a woman's clothing by a man in kṛṣṇa-līlā was intended to point out this fact. Such an act amounts to cheating and ridicule of the devotees of Kṛṣṇa. Sāmba is a personal associate of the Lord, but acting as a harbinger of the future misfortune to be created in Kali-yuga by bogus followers of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, Sāmba displayed this didactic pastime to help the living entities be blessed on the correct path of devotional service.

The boys said to the sages, "O ṛṣis, O brāhmaṇas, O Nārada and other great personalities, can you tell us whether it will be a son or a daughter that will be born from this pregnant woman's womb?" By addressing pure Vaiṣṇavas in this way, they anticipated the fraudulent sampradāyas of the modern age in their practice of sakhī-bheka, or dressing men as female associates of the gopīs. This unauthorized activity constitutes contempt and mockery of the pure devotees of the Lord.

Many false yogīs, imagining they are distributing first-class devotion on the liberated platform, attempt to award the status of "pure devotee" to candidates totally ignorant of the transcendental tastes of madhura-rati, or the Lord's conjugal love in the spiritual world. Even though they know that the general populace is unfit to imitate the liberated associates of the Lord, they artificially decorate ordinary persons with the ornaments of spiritual perfection, such as tears, a melted heart, and the standing on end of the bodily hairs. Thus these bogus yogīs introduce a process that misleads the world. Because Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu understood that the great misfortune caused by such false yogīs, or kuyogīs, was impossible to forestall in the Kali-yuga, He infected them with insane desires for material objects of lust so that ordinary persons can easily identify such false yogīs as deviated from the path of pure devotional service.

The mockery of the brāhmaṇas and Vaiṣṇavas by the young boys of the Yadu dynasty who dressed Sāmba in woman's garb, and the resultant destruction of the Yadu dynasty, conclusively demonstrate the uselessness of the sahajiyā-sampradāyas.

Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī has confirmed that the lack of humility shown by the sons of the Yadu dynasty was an arrangement by the Lord Himself. In other words, the members of the Yadu dynasty are ultimately associates of Lord Kṛṣṇa, and to facilitate the instructive pastimes of the Lord they acted in apparently unethical ways.

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His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, Founder Ācārya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness
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