Shloka 16
Brahmā’s Prayers to Lord Kṛṣṇa (Brahmā-stuti) and the Restoration of Vraja’s Lunch Pastime
अत्रैव मायाधमनावतारे ह्यस्य प्रपञ्चस्य बहि: स्फुटस्य । कृत्स्नस्य चान्तर्जठरे जनन्या मायात्वमेव प्रकटीकृतं ते ॥ १६ ॥
atraiva māyā-dhamanāvatāre hy asya prapañcasya bahiḥ sphuṭasya kṛtsnasya cāntar jaṭhare jananyā māyātvam eva prakaṭī-kṛtaṁ te
My Lord, in this incarnation You have shown that You are the supreme controller of Māyā. Though You appear within this universe, the entire creation rests within Your transcendental body—revealed when You showed the universe within Your abdomen to 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.
FAQs
This verse says Kṛṣṇa appears as the avatāra who subdues māyā and He demonstrates māyā’s nature by revealing that even the vast, externally evident universe can be contained by His own divine arrangement.
In Brahmā’s prayers (Canto 10, Chapter 14), he glorifies Kṛṣṇa’s inconceivable potency: the Lord makes the whole cosmos seem small and dependent, showing that reality rests on Him, not on Brahmā’s cosmic administration.
Don’t overestimate the “obvious” power of the material world; cultivate bhakti and humility, remembering that what appears all-encompassing is still under the Supreme Lord’s control.