Text 46
śrī-rājovāca
nandaḥ kim akarod brahman
śreya evaṁ mahodayam
yaśodā ca mahā-bhāgā
papau yasyāḥ stanaṁ hariḥ
śrī-rājā uvāca — Mahārāja Parīkṣit further inquired (from Śukadeva Gosvāmī); nandaḥ — Mahārāja Nanda; kim — what; akarot — performed; brahman — O learned brāhmaṇa; śreyaḥ — auspicious activities, like performing penances and austerities; evam — as exhibited by him; mahā-udayam — from which they achieved the greatest perfection; yaśodā — mother Yaśodā; ca — also; mahā-bhāgā — most fortunate; papau — drank; yasyāḥ — of whom; stanam — the breast milk; hariḥ — the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
Having heard of the great fortune of mother Yaśodā, Parīkṣit Mahārāja inquired from Śukadeva Gosvāmī: O learned brāhmaṇa, mother Yaśodā’s breast milk was sucked by the Supreme Personality of Godhead. What past auspicious activities did she and Nanda Mahārāja perform to achieve such perfection in ecstatic love?
As stated in Bhagavad-gītā (7.16), catur-vidhā bhajante māṁ janāḥ sukṛtino ’rjuna. Without sukṛti, or pious activities, no one can come to the shelter of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The Lord is approached by four kinds of pious men (ārto jijñāsur arthārthī jñānī ca), but here we see that Nanda Mahārāja and Yaśodā surpassed all of them. Therefore Parīkṣit Mahārāja naturally inquired, “What kind of pious activities did they perform in their past lives by which they achieved such a stage of perfection?” Of course, Nanda Mahārāja and Yaśodā are accepted as the father and mother of Kṛṣṇa, yet mother Yaśodā was more fortunate than Nanda Mahārāja, Kṛṣṇa’s father, because Nanda Mahārāja was sometimes separated from Kṛṣṇa whereas Yaśodā, Kṛṣṇa’s mother, was not separated from Kṛṣṇa at any moment. From Kṛṣṇa’s babyhood to His childhood and from His childhood to His youth, mother Yaśodā was always in association with Kṛṣṇa. Even when Kṛṣṇa was grown up, He would go to Vṛndāvana and sit on the lap of mother Yaśodā. Therefore there is no comparison to the fortune of mother Yaśodā, and Parīkṣit Mahārāja naturally inquired, yaśodā ca mahā-bhāgā.