Shloka 1
Vibhūti-yoga in the Bhāgavata: The Lord’s Manifest Opulences and the Discipline of Control
श्रीउद्धव उवाच त्वं ब्रह्म परमं साक्षादनाद्यन्तमपावृतम् । सर्वेषामपि भावानां त्राणस्थित्यप्ययोद्भव: ॥ १ ॥
śrī-uddhava uvāca tvaṁ brahma paramaṁ sākṣād anādy-antam apāvṛtam sarveṣām api bhāvānāṁ trāṇa-sthity-apyayodbhavaḥ
သီရိ ဥဒ္ဓဝက ပြောသည်—အရှင်ဘုရား၊ သင်သည် တကယ်တမ်း အမြင့်ဆုံး ဘြဟ္မန်ဖြစ်၍ အစမရှိ အဆုံးမရှိ၊ မည်သည့်အရာကမျှ ကန့်သတ်မထားနိုင်ပါ။ သင်သည် အရာအားလုံး၏ ကာကွယ်သူ၊ တည်တံ့စေသူ၊ ဖျက်ဆီးသူနှင့် ပေါ်ပေါက်လာခြင်း၏ အကြောင်းရင်း ဖြစ်ပါသည်။
Brahma means the greatest of all and the cause of everything. Uddhava here addresses the Lord as the paramam, or supreme brahma, because in His feature as Bhagavān the Lord is the highest feature of the Absolute Truth and the shelter of unlimited spiritual opulences. Unlike those of ordinary living entities, the Lord’s opulences cannot be restricted by time, and thus the Lord is anādy-antam, without beginning or end, and apāvṛtam, unhindered by any superior or equal potency. The opulence of the material world is also resting within the Lord, who alone can protect, maintain, create and destroy the material world. In this chapter, Śrī Uddhava inquires from the Lord about His spiritual and material opulences in order to refine his appreciation of the Lord’s position as the Absolute Truth. Even Lord Viṣṇu, the ultimate creator of the material world, is an expansion of Lord Kṛṣṇa, and thus Śrī Uddhava wishes to fully appreciate the unique status of his personal friend.
FAQs
This verse states that Krishna is directly the Supreme Brahman—uncovered, beginningless and endless—who is the ultimate source behind protection, maintenance, and dissolution of all existence.
In the Uddhava-gītā context, Uddhava is recognizing Krishna’s supreme position as the controller of cosmic functions—preservation, sustenance, and withdrawal—before inquiring further about His divine opulences.
Seeing the Lord as the ultimate shelter helps cultivate steadiness in change—one practices devotion and responsibility while trusting that all outcomes rest within the Supreme’s protection and governance.