Srimad Bhagavatam — Ashtama Skandha, Shloka 4
Aftermath of Gajendra’s Deliverance: Hūhū’s Release, Indradyumna’s Curse, and Sārūpya-mukti
योऽसौ ग्राह: स वै सद्य: परमाश्चर्यरूपधृक् । मुक्तो देवलशापेन हूहूर्गन्धर्वसत्तम: ॥ ३ ॥ प्रणम्य शिरसाधीशमुत्तमश्लोकमव्ययम् । अगायत यशोधाम कीर्तन्यगुणसत्कथम् ॥ ४ ॥
yo ’sau grāhaḥ sa vai sadyaḥ paramāścarya-rūpa-dhṛk mukto devala-śāpena hūhūr gandharva-sattamaḥ
ဒေဝလ မုနိ၏ ကျိန်စာကြောင့် ဂန္ဓဗ္ဗအထက်မြတ် ရာဇာ ဟူးဟူးသည် မိကျောင်းဖြစ်ခဲ့သည်။ ယခု အမြင့်မြတ်သော ဘုရား၏ ကရုဏာဖြင့် လွတ်မြောက်သဖြင့် ချက်ချင်း အလွန်အံ့ဩဖွယ် လှပသော ဂန္ဓဗ္ဗရုပ်ကို ပြန်လည်ခံယူ하였다။ ဤအရာသည် မည်သူ၏ အနုဂ्रहကြောင့် ဖြစ်သည်ကို သိပြီး ခေါင်းငုံ့ကာ မပျက်မယွင်းသော “ဥတ္တမရှ္လိုက” အရှင်ကို နမස්ကာရပြု၍ ကီർത്തနာထိုက်သော ဂုဏ်တော်များပါဝင်သည့် သီချင်းဆုတောင်းများကို သီဆိုလေ၏။
The story of how the Gandharva had become a crocodile will be described later. The curse by which the Gandharva took this position was actually a blessing, not a curse. One should not be displeased when a saintly person curses someone, for his curse, indirectly, is a blessing. The Gandharva had the mentality of an inhabitant of the celestial planetary system, and for him to become an associate of the Supreme Lord would have taken millions of long years. However, because he was cursed by Devala Ṛṣi, he became a crocodile and in only one life was fortunate enough to see the Supreme Personality of Godhead face to face and be promoted to the spiritual world to become one of the Lord’s associates. Similarly, Gajendra was also delivered by the Supreme Personality of Godhead when he was freed from the curse of Agastya Muni.
FAQs
The crocodile was actually Hūhū, a Gandharva, who had taken that form due to the curse of the sage Devala.
It shows that karmic bondage such as a curse can be undone instantly by the Lord’s arrangement, revealing the soul’s original identity when divine grace acts.
As reminders that circumstances can change at any moment by higher will; one should take shelter of bhakti rather than identifying permanently with temporary conditions.