Text 8
dhanyeyam adya dharaṇī tṛṇa-vīrudhas tvat-
pāda-spṛśo druma-latāḥ karajābhimṛṣṭāḥ
nadyo ’drayaḥ khaga-mṛgāḥ sadayāvalokair
gopyo ’ntareṇa bhujayor api yat-spṛhā śrīḥ
dhanyā — fortunate; iyam — this; adya — now; dharaṇī — the earth; tṛṇa — her grasses; vīrudhaḥ — and bushes; tvat — Your; pāda — of the feet; spṛśaḥ — receiving the touch; druma — the trees; latāḥ — and creepers; kara-ja — by Your fingernails; abhimṛṣṭāḥ — touched; nadyaḥ — the rivers; adrayaḥ — and mountains; khaga — the birds; mṛgāḥ — and animals; sadaya — merciful; avalokaiḥ — by Your glances; gopyaḥ — the gopīs; antareṇa — in between; bhujayoḥ — Your two arms; api — indeed; yat — for which; spṛhā — maintains the desire; śrīḥ — the goddess of fortune.
This earth has now become most fortunate, because You have touched her grass and bushes with Your feet and her trees and creepers with Your fingernails, and because You have graced her rivers, mountains, birds and animals with Your merciful glances. But above all, You have embraced the young cowherd women between Your two arms — a favor hankered after by the goddess of fortune herself.
The word adya, “now,” indicates the time of Lord Balarāma and Lord Kṛṣṇa’s appearance on the earth. In His form of Varāha, Lord Kṛṣṇa personally saved the earth, and, indeed, the earth is understood to rest perpetually on the potency of Śeṣa. Both Varāha and Śeṣa are expansions of Balarāma, who is Himself an expansion of Lord Kṛṣṇa, the original Personality of Godhead. Lord Kṛṣṇa’s statement that “this earth has now become most fortunate” (dhanyeyam adya dharaṇī) indicates that nothing can equal the blessings of the Supreme Personality of Godhead in His personal form as Kṛṣṇa, appearing simultaneously with His plenary expansion, Balarāma. The compound word karajābhimṛṣṭāḥ, “touched by Your fingernails,” indicates that as Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma would move through the forest They would pick fruits and flowers from the trees, bushes and creepers and use this paraphernalia in Their pleasure pastimes. Sometimes They would break leaves off the plants and use them with the flowers to decorate Their bodies.
Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma would glance lovingly and mercifully at all the rivers, hills and creatures in Vṛndāvana. But the blessing received by the gopīs — being embraced directly between the Lord’s arms — was the supreme benediction, desired even by the goddess of fortune herself. The goddess of fortune, who lives in Vaikuṇṭha on the chest of Lord Nārāyaṇa, once desired to be embraced on the chest of Śrī Kṛṣṇa, and thus she performed severe austerities to achieve this blessing. Śrī Kṛṣṇa informed her that her actual place was in Vaikuṇṭha and that it was not possible for her to dwell upon His chest in Vṛndāvana. Therefore she begged Kṛṣṇa to allow her to remain on His chest in the form of a golden line, and He granted her this benediction. Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura recounts this incident from the Purāṇas.