TEXT 16
vaiyasakis ca bhagavan
vasudeva-parayanah
urugaya-gunodarah
satam syur hi samagame
SYNONYMS
vaiyasakihthe son of Vyasadeva; caalso; bhagavanfull in transcendental knowledge; vasudevaLord Krsna; parayanahattached to; urugayaof the Personality of Godhead Sri Krsna, who is glorified by great philosophers; guna-udarahgreat qualities; satamof the devotees; syuhmust have been; hias a matter of fact; samagameby the presence of.
TRANSLATION
Sukadeva Gosvami, the son of Vyasadeva, was also full in transcendental knowledge and was a great devotee of Lord Krsna, son of Vasudeva. So there must have been discussion of Lord Krsna, who is glorified by great philosophers and in the company of great devotees.
PURPORT
The word satam is very important in this verse. Satam means the pure devotees, who have no other desire than to serve the Lord. Only in the association of such devotees are the transcendental glories of Lord Krsna properly discussed. It is said by the Lord that His topics are all full of spiritual significance, and once one properly hears about Him in the association of the satam, certainly one senses the great potency and so automatically attains to the devotional stage of life. As already described, Maharaja Pariksit was a great devotee of the Lord from his very birth, and so was Sukadeva Gosvami. Both of them were on the same level, although it appeared that Maharaja Pariksit was a great king accustomed to royal facilities whereas Sukadeva Gosvami was a typical renouncer of the world, so much so that he did not even put a cloth on his body. Superficially, Maharaja Pariksit and Sukadeva Gosvami might seem to be opposites, but basically they were both unalloyed pure devotees of the Lord. When such devotees are assembled together, there can be no topics save discussions of the glories of the Lord, or bhakti-yoga. In the Bhagavad-gita also, when there were talks between the Lord and His devotee Arjuna, there could not be any topic other than bhakti-yoga, however the mundane scholars may speculate on it in their own ways. The use of the word ca after vaiyasakih suggests, according to Srila Jiva Gosvami, that both Sukadeva Gosvami and Maharaja Pariksit were of the same category, settled long before, although one was playing the part of the master and the other the disciple. Since Lord Krsna is the center of the topics, the word vasudeva-parayanah, or "devotee of Vasudeva," suggests devotee of Lord Krsna, the common aim. Although there were many others who assembled at the place where Maharaja Pariksit was fasting, the natural conclusion is that there was no topic other than the glorification of Lord Krsna, because the principal speaker was Sukadeva Gosvami and the chief audience was Maharaja Pariksit. So Srimad-Bhagavatam, as it was spoken and heard by two principal devotees of the Lord, is only for the glorification of the Supreme Lord, the Personality of Godhead, Sri Krsna.

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