Chapter 90: The Queens Play and Speak and Lord Krishna's Glories Summarized

(15) The queens said [see also 10.47: 12-21, 10.83: 8-40]: 'O kurari you are lamenting, deprived of sleep you cannot rest while the Controller somewhere in the world in an unknown place is sleeping this night. Is it that you, like us o friend, had your heart pierced to the core by the smiling, munificent, playful glance of His lotus eyes? (16) O cakravâkî, alas, having closed your eyes for the night, you're crying pitifully. Or do you, having attained the servitude, perhaps like us desire in your braided hair the garland honored by Acyuta's feet? (17) O dear, dear ocean, you're always making such a noise, never getting any sleep. Do you suffer insomnia? Or were maybe your personal qualities stolen by Mukunda and have you also reached the state from which there is no escape? (18) O moon are you, seized by the fell disease of consumption, so emaciated that you can't dispel the darkness with your rays? Or is it that you appear so stunned to us, o dear, because you, like us, can't remember the talks of Mukunda? (19) O wind from the Malaya mountains, what have we done that would have displeased you so that we are inspired with lust in our hearts, hearts that are already torn apart by Govinda's sidelong glances? (20) O you honorable cloud, you sure are a friend most dear to the Chief of the Yâdavas with the S'rîvatsa on His chest. We, just as your good self, are bound to Him in our meditation on the pure of love. Your most eager heart is as distraught as ours. The same way as you, do we remember Him over and over and results that in torrents of rain with you and gives that us streams of tears again and again. That is the pain one suffers in association with Him. (21) O sweet-throated cuckoo, please tell me what I should do to please you who, in this voice able to revive the dead, are uttering the vibrations of Him whose sounds are so dear. (22) O mountain so broad in your intelligence, you do not move or speak. Are you preoccupied with great matters, or do you maybe like us desire to hold the feet of the darling son of Vasudeva on your breasts? (23) O [rivers,] wives of the ocean, your lakes alas have lost their wealth of lotuses, now they just like us dried up emaciated of not obtaining the loving glance of our beloved husband, the Lord of Madhu, who so often cheated our hearts [see also 10.47: 41 and 10.48: 11]. (24) O swan, be welcome and sit down, please drink some milk, tell us o dear one the news, for we know you are a messenger of S'auri. Is the Unconquerable One all well? Does He who is so fickle in His friendship still remember that He talked to us so long ago? Why should we [run after Him to] be of worship, o servant of the campaka [a type of magnolia]? Tell Him who raises the desire that He must visit us without the goddess of fortune. Why would that woman have the exclusive right of devotion?'

(25) S'rî S'uka said: 'Speaking and acting with such ecstatic love for Krishna, the Master of the Yogamasters, attained the wives of Lord Mâdhava the ultimate goal. (26) He, in numerous songs glorified in numerous ways, attracts with force the mind of any woman who but heard about Him. And what then would that mean to those who directly see Him? (27) How ever can the abnegations be described of the women who with the idea of having Him, the Spiritual Master of the Universe, as their husband, with pure love served His feet perfectly with massages and so on? (28) This manner proceeding according the dharma as defended by the Vedas, demonstrated He, the Goal of the Saintly, how one's home is the place to regulate one's religiosity, economic development and sense gratification [the purushârthas]. (29) With Krishna answering to the higest standard of a householder's life, where there over sixteen thousand and one hundred queens [see also 10.59** and 7.14]. (30) Among them there were eight gems of women headed by Rukminî whom I along with their sons one after the other described previously [see 10.83 & 10.61: 8-19], o King. (31) In each of His many wives begot Krishna, the Supreme Lord Never Failing in His Effort, ten sons [and one daughter]. (32) Of these there were eighteen mahârathas of an unlimited prowess, whose fame spread wide; hear their names from me. (33-34) They were Pradyumna and [His grandson or other son] Aniruddha; Dîptimân and Bhânu as also Sâmba, Madhu and Brihadbhânu; Citrabhânu, Vrika and Aruna; Pushkara and Vedabâhu, S'rutadeva and Sunandana; Citrabâhu and Virûpa, Kavi and Nyagrodha. (35) O best of kings, of these sons of Krishna, the enemy of Madhu, was Pradyumna, the son of Rukminî, the most prominent one. He was just like His father. (36) He, the great chariot fighter, married the daughter of Rukmî [named Rukmavatî] from whom then was born Aniruddha who was endowed with the strength of a ten thousand elephants [see 10.61]. (37) Furthermore took He, as you know, next Rukmî's granddaughter [Rocana] for His wife and from her was His son Vajra born, the only one to remain after the battle with the clubs [see 3.4: 1 & 2]. (38) Pratibâhu came from him, of whom there was Subâhu and from Subâhu's son S'ântasena came S'atasena as his son. (39) Truly none of the offspring appearing in this family was poor in wealth or children, short-lived, small in prowess or neglecting the brahminical. (40) The deeds of fame of the men born in the Yadu-dynasty are innumerable, o King, not even in tens of thousands of years one could sum them up. (41) It was heard that for the children of the Yadu family there were thirty-eight million eight-hundred thousand teachers. (42) Who can keep count of the Yâdavas when Ugrasena alone was present among them with tens upon ten thousands upon hundreds of thousands [*] of great personalities? (43) The most pitiless Daityas who in wars between the enlightened and unenlightened souls were killed, took their birth among the human beings and arrogantly gave trouble to the populace. (44) To subdue them were the devas by the Lord told to descend in the one hundred-and-one clans of the family o King [see 10.1: 62-63]. (45) To them was Krishna on account of His mastery the authority of Lord Hari because of which all the Yâdavas who were His faithful followers prospered. (46) In their activities of sleeping, sitting, walking, conversing, playing, bathing and so on were the Vrishnis who always thought of Krishna not aware of the presence of their own bodies [and thus fearless, see also 10.89: 14-17]. (47) O King, taking birth among the Yadus outshone He the site of pilgrimage of the river of heaven [the Ganges] that washes from His feet. With His embodiment attained friends and foes their goal [7.1: 46-47]. His is the undefeated and supremely perfect goddess of S'rî for whom others are struggling. His name heard or chanted is what destroys the inauspiciousness. By Him was the dharma settled for the lines of descend [of the sages]. With Lord Krishna, whose weapon is the wheel of Time, is this removal of the earth's burden nothing wonderous [see also 3.2: 7-12]. (48) He glorious as the Ultimate Abode and known as the son of Devakî, He who as the devotion of the Yadu nobles with His arms [or devotees] puts an end to the unrighteous, He who is the Destroyer of the Distress of the Moving and Nonmoving Beings, is the One who always smiling with His beautiful face arouses Cupid with the damsels of Vraja [see 10.30-33, 10.35, 10.47]. (49) Proceeding this way with the Supreme has He with the desire to protect His own path for His lîlâ assumed various personal forms and has He imitating the [human] ways destroyed the karma. When one wants to follow His feet will one have to listen to the stories about the Best One of the Yadus. (50) At every sacrifice hearing, singing and meditating on the beautiful topics about Mukunda, does a mortal from his home head for His abode, where the inescapable push of death comes to a stop. Even the ones ruling the earth [like Dhruva and Priyavrata] went for the sake of this purpose into the forest.'

Thus the tenth Canto of the S'rîmad Bhâgavatam ends named: The Summum Bonum.