Text 29
sthity-udbhavāntaṁ bhuvana-trayasya yaḥ
samīhite ’nanta-guṇaḥ sva-līlayā
na tasya citraṁ para-pakṣa-nigrahas
tathāpi martyānuvidhasya varṇyate
sthiti — the maintenance; udbhava — creation; antam — and annihilation; bhuvana-trayasya — of the three worlds; yaḥ — who; samīhite — effects; ananta — unlimited; guṇaḥ — whose transcendental qualities; sva-līlayā — as His own pastime; na — not; tasya — for Him; citram — wonderful; para — opposing; pakṣa — of the party; nigrahaḥ — the subduing; tathā api — nevertheless; martya — human beings; anuvidhasya — who is imitating; varṇyate — it is described.
For Him who orchestrates the creation, maintenance and destruction of the three worlds and who possesses unlimited spiritual qualities, it is hardly amazing that He subdues an opposing party. Still, when the Lord does so, imitating human behavior, sages glorify His acts.
The philosopher Aristotle once argued that the Supreme God would hardly take part in human activities, since all ordinary activities are unworthy of such a divine being. Similarly, Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī, who almost certainly never read the works of Aristotle, raises a similar point. Since Śrī Kṛṣṇa creates, maintains and annihilates the entire universe, isn’t it an uninteresting mismatch when He fights against Jarāsandha?
The answer is as follows: The Lord plays the part of a human being and, expanding His pleasure potency, creates thrilling transcendental pastimes full of suspense and dynamic action. By the Lord’s Yogamāyā potency, He appears exactly like a human being, and thus we may enjoy the spectacle of the Supreme Person acting on the earthly stage. Undoubtedly, stubborn agnostics will argue that since Kṛṣṇa is God, there is no real suspense involved. Such skeptics simply do not understand Kṛṣṇa’s attractive potency. Beauty and drama, even on the material stage, possess their own fascinating logic, and similarly we love Kṛṣṇa for His own sake, we appreciate His beauty for its own sake, and we enjoy Kṛṣṇa’s pastimes because they are in fact wonderful in and of themselves. In fact, Kṛṣṇa executes His pastimes not for a mundane egotistical purpose but for our pleasure. Thus the presentation of spiritual pastimes is itself an act of love that Kṛṣṇa performs for the infinite spiritual happiness of pure-hearted souls who have transcended material envy of the Godhead.
In this regard, Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī quotes an important verse from the Gopāla-tāpanī Upaniṣad: narākṛti para-brahma kāraṇa-mānuṣaḥ. “The Supreme Absolute Truth, for His own purpose, appears in a humanlike form, although He is the source of everything.” Similarly, in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (10.14.32) we find, yan-mitraṁ paramānandaṁ pūrṇaṁ brahma sanātanam: “The source of transcendental bliss, the eternal Supreme Brahman, has become their friend.”