Text 16
atraiva māyā-dhamanāvatāre
hy asya prapañcasya bahiḥ sphuṭasya
kṛtsnasya cāntar jaṭhare jananyā
māyātvam eva prakaṭī-kṛtaṁ te
atra — in this; eva — indeed; māyā-dhamana — O subduer of Māyā; avatāre — in the incarnation; hi — certainly; asya — of this; prapañcasya — created material manifestation; bahiḥ — externally; sphuṭasya — which is visible; kṛtsnasya — entire; ca — and; antaḥ — within; jaṭhare — Your abdomen; jananyāḥ — unto Your mother; māyātvam — Your bewildering potency; eva — indeed; prakaṭī-kṛtam — has been demonstrated; te — by You.
My dear Lord, in this incarnation You have proved that You are the supreme controller of Māyā. Although You are now within this universe, the whole universal creation is within Your transcendental body — a fact You demonstrated by exhibiting the universe within Your abdomen before Your mother, Yaśodā.
Lord Brahmā here describes the inconceivable spiritual potency of the Lord. We may find a pot within a house, but we can hardly expect to find the house within the same pot. By the Lord’s spiritual potency, however, He can appear within this universe and simultaneously exhibit all the universes within His body. One may argue that since the universes seen by mother Yaśodā within Lord Kṛṣṇa’s abdomen were within the Lord’s body, they are different from the illusory material universes manifest externally. Here Lord Brahmā refutes that argument, however. Lord Kṛṣṇa is māyā-dhamana, the supreme controller of illusion. By the Lord’s own supreme mystic potency, He can bewilder even illusion herself, and thus the Lord actually exhibited all the material universes within His body. This is māyātvam, the supreme bewildering potency of the Personality of Godhead.