Text 33
muṣalāvaśeṣāyaḥ-khaṇḍa-
kṛteṣur lubdhako jarā
mṛgāsyākāraṁ tac-caraṇaṁ
vivyādha mṛga-śaṅkayā
muṣala — from the iron club; avaśeṣa — remaining; ayaḥ — of iron; khaṇḍa — with the fragment; kṛta — who had made; iṣuḥ — his arrow; lubdhakaḥ — the hunter; jarā — named Jarā; mṛga — of a deer; āsya — of the face; ākāram — having the form; tat — His; caraṇam — lotus foot; vivyādha — pierced; mṛga-śaṅkayā — thinking it to be a deer.
Just then a hunter named Jarā, who had approached the place, mistook the Lord’s foot for a deer’s face. Thinking he had found his prey, Jarā pierced the foot with his arrow, which he had fashioned from the remaining iron fragment of Sāmba’s club.
According to Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura, the statement that the arrow “pierced the Lord’s foot” expresses the point of view of the hunter, who thought he had struck a deer. In fact the arrow merely touched the Lord’s lotus foot and did not pierce it, since the Lord’s limbs are composed of eternity, knowledge and bliss. Otherwise, in the description of the next verse (that the hunter became fearful and fell down with his head upon the Lord’s feet), Śukadeva Gosvāmī would have stated that he extracted his arrow from the Lord’s foot.