Text 11
sāmudrīṁ devadevoktām
upayeme śatadrutim
yāṁ vīkṣya cāru-sarvāṅgīṁ
kiśorīṁ suṣṭhv-alaṅkṛtām
parikramantīm udvāhe
cakame ’gniḥ śukīm iva
sāmudrīm — unto the daughter of the ocean; deva-deva-uktām — being advised by the supreme demigod, Lord Brahmā; upayeme — married; śatadrutim — of the name Śatadruti; yām — whom; vīkṣya — seeing; cāru — very attractive; sarva-aṅgīm — all the features of the body; kiśorīm — youthful; suṣṭhu — sufficiently; alaṅkṛtām — decorated with ornaments; parikramantīm — circumambulating; udvāhe — in the marriage ceremony; cakame — being attracted; agniḥ — the fire-god; śukīm — unto Śukī; iva — like.
Mahārāja Barhiṣat — henceforward known as Prācīnabarhi — was ordered by the supreme demigod Brahmā to marry the daughter of the ocean named Śatadruti. Her bodily features were completely beautiful, and she was very young. She was decorated with the proper garments, and when she came into the marriage arena and began circumambulating it, the fire-god Agni became so attracted to her that he desired her company, exactly as he had formerly desired to enjoy Śukī.
In this verse the word suṣṭhv-alaṅkṛtām is significant. According to the Vedic system, when a girl is married, she is very profusely and gorgeously decorated with costly saris and jewelry, and during the marriage ceremony the bride circumambulates the bridegroom seven times. After this, the bridegroom and bride look at one another and become attracted for life. When the bridegroom finds the bride very beautiful, the attraction between them immediately becomes very strongly fixed. As stated in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, men and women are naturally attracted to one another, and when they are united by marriage that attraction becomes very strong. Being so strongly attracted, the bridegroom attempts to set up a nice homestead and eventually a good field for producing grains. Then children come, then friends, and then wealth. In this way the male becomes more and more entangled in the material conceptions of life, and he begins to think, “This is mine,” and “It is I who am acting.” In this way the illusion of material existence is perpetuated.
The words śukīm iva are also significant, for the fire-god Agni became attracted by the beauty of Śatadruti while she was circumambulating the bridegroom Prācīnabarhi, just as he had previously been attracted to the beauty of Śukī, the wife of Saptarṣi. When the fire-god had been present long ago at the assembly of Saptarṣi, he was attracted by the beauty of Śukī when she was circumambulating in the same way. Agni’s wife, named Svāhā, took the form of Śukī and enjoyed sex life with Agni. Not only the fire-god Agni but the heavenly god Indra and sometimes even Lord Brahmā and Lord Śiva — all very highly situated demigods — are subject to being attracted by sex at any time. The sex drive is so strong in the living entities that the whole material world is running on sex attraction only, and it is due to sex attraction that one remains in the material world and is obliged to accept different types of bodies. The attraction of sex life is more clearly explained in the next verse.