Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 1.15.17

Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 1.15.17

sautye vṛtaḥ kumatinātmada īśvaro me

yat-pāda-padmam abhavāya bhajanti bhavyāḥ

māḿ śrānta-vāham arayo rathino bhuvi-ṣṭhaḿ

na prāharan yad-anubhāva-nirasta-cittāḥ

SYNONYMS

sautye — regarding a chariot driver; vṛtaḥ — engaged; kumatinā — by bad consciousness; ātma-daḥ — one who delivers; īśvaraḥ — the Supreme Lord; me — my; yat — whose; pāda-padmam — lotus feet; abhavāya — in the matter of salvation; bhajanti — do render service; bhavyāḥ — the intelligent class of men; mām — unto me; śrānta — thirsty; vāham — my horses; arayaḥ — the enemies; rathinaḥ — a great general; bhuvi-ṣṭham — while standing on the ground; na — did not; prāharan — attack; yat — whose; anubhāva — mercy; nirasta — being absent; cittāḥ — mind.

TRANSLATION

It was by His mercy only that my enemies neglected to kill me when I descended from my chariot to get water for my thirsty horses. And it was due to my lack of esteem for my Lord that I dared engage Him as my chariot driver, for He is worshiped and offered services by the best men to attain salvation.

PURPORT

The Supreme Lord, the Personality of Godhead Śrī Kṛṣṇa, is the object of worship both by impersonalists and by the devotees of the Lord. The impersonalists worship His glowing effulgence, emanating from His transcendental body of eternal form, bliss and knowledge, and the devotees worship Him as the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Those who are below even the impersonalists consider Him to be one of the great historical personalities. The Lord, however, descends to attract all by His specific transcendental pastimes, and thus He plays the part of the most perfect master, friend, son and lover. His transcendental relation with Arjuna was in friendship, and the Lord therefore played the part perfectly, as He did with His parents, lovers and wives. While playing in such a perfect transcendental relation, the devotee forgets, by the internal potency of the Lord, that his friend or son is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, although sometimes the devotee is bewildered by the acts of the Lord. After the departure of the Lord, Arjuna was conscious of his great friend, but there was no mistake on the part of Arjuna, nor any ill estimation of the Lord. Intelligent men are attracted by the transcendental acting of the Lord with a pure, unalloyed devotee like Arjuna.

In the warfield, scarcity of water is a well-known fact. Water is very rare there, and both the animals and men, working strenuously on the warfield, constantly require water to quench their thirst. Especially wounded soldiers and generals feel very thirsty at the time of death, and it sometimes so happens that simply for want of water one has to die unavoidably. But such scarcity of water was solved in the Battle of Kurukṣetra by means of boring the ground. By God's grace, water can be easily obtained from any place if there is facility for boring the ground. The modern system works on the same principle of boring the ground, but modern engineers are still unable to dig immediately wherever necessary. It appears, however, from the history as far back as the days of the Pāṇḍavas, that big generals like Arjuna could at once supply water even to the horses, and what to speak of men, by drawing water from underneath the hard ground simply by penetrating the stratum with a sharp arrow, a method still unknown to the modern scientists.