Shloka 13
Karmic Aspirations, Demigod Worship, and the Supreme Duty of Bhakti
Hari-kathā as Life’s True Gain
शौनक उवाच इत्यभिव्याहृतं राजा निशम्य भरतर्षभ: । किमन्यत्पृष्टवान् भूयो वैयासकिमृषिं कविम् ॥ १३ ॥
śaunaka uvāca ity abhivyāhṛtaṁ rājā niśamya bharatarṣabhaḥ kim anyat pṛṣṭavān bhūyo vaiyāsakim ṛṣiṁ kavim
ရှောနကက ပြောသည်—ဤသို့ ပြောဆိုထားသမျှကို ကြားပြီးနောက် ဘာရတဝంశ၏ အမြတ်ဆုံး ရာဇာ ပရိက္ခစ်သည် ကဗျာဆန်သော ရှိန်တော်၊ ဗျာသသား သရီရှုကဒေဝ ဂိုစွာမီကို ထပ်မံ၍ ဘာကို မေးမြန်းခဲ့သနည်း။
A pure devotee of the Lord automatically develops all godly qualities, and some of the prominent features of those qualities are as follows: he is kind, peaceful, truthful, equable, faultless, magnanimous, mild, clean, nonpossessive, a well-wisher to all, satisfied, surrendered to Kṛṣṇa, without hankering, simple, fixed, self-controlled, a balanced eater, sane, mannerly, prideless, grave, sympathetic, friendly, poetic, expert and silent. Out of these twenty-six prominent features of a devotee, as described by Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja in his Caitanya-caritāmṛta, the qualification of being poetic is especially mentioned herein in relation to Śukadeva Gosvāmī. The presentation of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam by his recitation is the highest poetic contribution. He was a self-realized learned sage. In other words, he was a poet amongst the sages.
FAQs
Śaunaka asks Sūta to continue the narration by telling what further questions King Parīkṣit asked Śukadeva (Vaiyāsaki) after hearing the previous teachings.
He is called Vaiyāsaki because he is the son of Vyāsa, and kavi because he is a realized seer-poet—one who knows the Absolute Truth and can express it perfectly.
It emphasizes learning through attentive hearing and sincere follow-up questions—seeking clarity from authentic teachers instead of remaining passive or superficial.