Shloka 23

Bhagavān’s Avatāras, Their Protections (Poṣaṇa), and the Limits of Knowing Him

Devanagari script

अस्मत्प्रसादसुमुख: कलया कलेश इक्ष्वाकुवंश अवतीर्य गुरोर्निदेशे । तिष्ठन् वनं सदयितानुज आविवेश यस्मिन् विरुध्य दशकन्धर आर्तिमार्च्छत् ॥ २३ ॥

Transliteration

asmat-prasāda-sumukhaḥ kalayā kaleśa ikṣvāku-vaṁśa avatīrya guror nideśe tiṣṭhan vanaṁ sa-dayitānuja āviveśa yasmin virudhya daśa-kandhara ārtim ārcchat

Translation

ကမ္ဘာရှိ သတ္တဝါအားလုံးအပေါ် အကြောင်းမဲ့ကရုဏာကြောင့် သခင်ဘုရားသည် မိမိ၏ ပူর্ণကလာများနှင့်အတူ အိက္ရှဝါကုဝంశ၌ ဆင်းသက်ကာ စီတာ-ရှက္တိ၏ အရှင်အဖြစ် ပေါ်ထွန်းတော်မူသည်။ ဖခင် မဟာရာဇ ဒశရഥ၏ အမိန့်အရ မိဖုရားနှင့် ညီတော်နှင့်အတူ တောသို့ ဝင်ရောက်၍ နှစ်များစွာ နေထိုင်တော်မူသည်။ ဆယ်ခေါင်း ရာဝဏသည် ဆန့်ကျင်ကာ ကြီးမားသော အပြစ်ကို ကျူးလွန်ပြီး နောက်ဆုံးတွင် အနိုင်ယူခံရသည်။

Synonyms

• अस्मत्-प्रसाद-सुमुखः: whose face was gracious to us (by favor)
• अस्मत्-प्रसाद-सुमुखः: कर्ता-विशेषण
• Type: Adjective
• Root: अस्मद् (सर्वनाम) + प्रसाद (प्रातिपदिक) + सुमुख (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: पुंलिङ्ग, प्रथमा, एकवचन; Nominative singular; बहुव्रीहि (अस्मत्प्रसादेन सुमुखः यस्य)

• कलया: by a portion (of himself)
• कलया: करण (means: by a portion)
• Type: Noun
• Root: कला (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: स्त्रीलिङ्ग, तृतीया, एकवचन; Instrumental singular

• कलेशः: the Lord (Kaleśa)
• कलेशः: कर्ता (subject/apposition)
• Type: Noun
• Root: कलेश (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: पुंलिङ्ग, प्रथमा, एकवचन; Nominative singular; epithet

• इक्ष्वाकु-वंशे: in the Ikṣvāku dynasty
• इक्ष्वाकु-वंशे: अधिकरण (location/lineage)
• Type: Noun
• Root: इक्ष्वाकु (प्रातिपदिक) + वंश (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: पुंलिङ्ग, सप्तमी, एकवचन; Locative singular; समासः षष्ठी-तत्पुरुष (इक्ष्वाकोः वंशः)

• अवतीर्य: having descended
• अवतीर्य: पूर्वकाल-क्रिया
• Type: Verb
• Root: अव-तॄ (धातु) → अवतीर्य (कृदन्त)
• Form: क्त्वान्त (absolutive), अव्ययभाव; having descended

• गुरोः: of the guru (teacher/elder)
• गुरोः: सम्बन्ध (genitive relation)
• Type: Noun
• Root: गुरु (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: पुंलिङ्ग, षष्ठी, एकवचन; Genitive singular

• निदेशे: under the instruction
• निदेशे: अधिकरण (in/under command)
• Type: Noun
• Root: निदेश (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: पुंलिङ्ग, सप्तमी, एकवचन; Locative singular

• तिष्ठन्: staying; standing
• तिष्ठन्: कर्ता-विशेषण (concomitant action)
• Type: Verb
• Root: स्था (धातु) → तिष्ठत् (कृदन्त)
• Form: वर्तमान-कृदन्त (present participle), पुंलिङ्ग, प्रथमा, एकवचन; agrees with subject

• वनम्: the forest
• वनम्: कर्म (object of āviveśa)
• Type: Noun
• Root: वन (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: नपुंसकलिङ्ग, द्वितीया, एकवचन; Accusative singular

• स-दयिता-अनुजः: with his beloved’s younger brother (Lakṣmaṇa)
• स-दयिता-अनुजः: कर्ता (subject; apposition)
• Type: Noun
• Root: स (उपसर्ग/अव्यय-प्रयोग) + दयिता (प्रातिपदिक) + अनुज (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: पुंलिङ्ग, प्रथमा, एकवचन; Nominative singular; समासः तत्पुरुष (दयितायाः अनुजः) with सह- (saha) sense

• आविवेश: entered
• आविवेश: क्रिया (main verb)
• Type: Verb
• Root: आ-विश् (धातु)
• Form: लिट् (Perfect), प्रथमपुरुष, एकवचन; Parasmaipada

• यस्मिन्: in which
• यस्मिन्: अधिकरण (location in relative clause)
• Type: Noun
• Root: यद् (सर्वनाम-प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: पुंलिङ्ग/नपुंसकलिङ्ग, सप्तमी, एकवचन; Locative singular; relative pronoun referring to वनम्

• विरुध्य: having opposed; fighting
• विरुध्य: पूर्वकाल-क्रिया
• Type: Verb
• Root: वि-रुध् (धातु) → विरुध्य (कृदन्त)
• Form: क्त्वान्त (absolutive), अव्ययभाव; having opposed/fought

• दश-कन्धरः: the ten-necked one (Rāvaṇa)
• दश-कन्धरः: कर्ता (subject)
• Type: Noun
• Root: दशन् (संख्या) + कन्धर (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: पुंलिङ्ग, प्रथमा, एकवचन; Nominative singular; द्विगु-समास (दश कन्धराः यस्य)

• आर्तिम्: distress; suffering
• आर्तिम्: कर्म (object)
• Type: Noun
• Root: आर्ति (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: स्त्रीलिङ्ग, द्वितीया, एकवचन; Accusative singular

• आर्च्छत्: attained; met with
• आर्च्छत्: क्रिया
• Type: Verb
• Root: ऋ (धातु) with आ- prefix → आर्च्छ (धातु-रूप)
• Form: लुङ् (Aorist), प्रथमपुरुष, एकवचन; Parasmaipada; from आ-ऋच्छ्/आ-गम् sense ‘attained’

Purport

Lord Rāma is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and His brothers, namely Bharata, Lakṣmaṇa and Śatrughna, are His plenary expansions. All four brothers are viṣṇu-tattva and were never ordinary human beings. There are many unscrupulous and ignorant commentators on Rāmāyaṇa who present the younger brothers of Lord Rāmacandra as ordinary living entities. But here in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, the most authentic scripture on the science of Godhead, it is clearly stated that His brothers were His plenary expansions. Originally Lord Rāmacandra is the incarnation of Vāsudeva, Lakṣmaṇa is the incarnation of Saṅkarṣaṇa, Bharata is the incarnation of Pradyumna, and Śatrughna is the incarnation of Aniruddha, expansions of the Personality of Godhead. Lakṣmījī Sītā is the internal potency of the Lord and is neither an ordinary woman nor the external potency incarnation of Durgā. Durgā is the external potency of the Lord, and she is associated with Lord Śiva.

Characters & Entities

• Sri Rama
• Ikshvaku
• Ravana
• Sita
• Lakshmana

FAQs

What does the Srimad Bhagavatam say about Lord Rama’s appearance in the Ikshvaku dynasty?

This verse states that the Supreme Lord descended (with a plenary portion) in the Ikṣvāku dynasty, manifesting His Rāma-līlā for the welfare of beings and to display dharma.

Why does the Bhagavatam mention obedience to the guru in Lord Rama’s forest exile?

The verse highlights that the Lord acted according to the instruction of His guru, teaching by example that honoring rightful guidance and dharmic instruction is integral even for the greatest.

Practical application of Rama’s example in modern life?

Cultivate integrity and self-discipline by honoring legitimate duties and wise guidance, even when inconvenient—turning hardship into purposeful, dharmic conduct.