Shloka 1
Nārāyaṇa’s Impartiality, Absorption in Kṛṣṇa, and the Jaya–Vijaya Descent
Prelude to Prahlāda’s History
श्रीराजोवाच सम: प्रिय: सुहृद्ब्रह्मन् भूतानां भगवान् स्वयम् । इन्द्रस्यार्थे कथं दैत्यानवधीद्विषमो यथा ॥ १ ॥
śrī-rājovāca samaḥ priyaḥ suhṛd brahman bhūtānāṁ bhagavān svayam indrasyārthe kathaṁ daityān avadhīd viṣamo yathā
ဘုရင် ပရိက္ခိတ် မေးလျက်ရှိသည်—အို ဘြာဟ္မဏာ၊ အမြင့်ဆုံးဘုရား ဝိෂ္ဏုသည် သတ္တဝါအားလုံးအပေါ် တန်းတူညီမျှ၍ ချစ်ခင်ရသော မိတ်ဆွေကောင်းဖြစ်တော်မူသည်။ ထိုသို့ဖြစ်လျှင် အင်ဒြာ၏ အကျိုးအတွက် သာမန်လူကဲ့သို့ ဘက်လိုက်ကာ အင်ဒြာ၏ ရန်သူ ဒိုင်တျများကို မည်သို့ သတ်နိုင်ပါသနည်း။ အားလုံးကို တန်းတူမြင်သောသူသည် အချို့ကို ဘက်လိုက်၍ အချို့ကို ရန်လိုနိုင်သည်မှာ မည်သို့ဖြစ်နိုင်ပါသနည်း။
In Bhagavad-gītā (9.29) the Lord says, samo ’haṁ sarva-bhūteṣu na me dveṣyo ’sti na priyaḥ: “I am equal to everyone. No one is dear to Me, nor is anyone My enemy.” In the previous canto, however, it has been observed that the Lord sided with Indra by killing the demons on his account ( hata-putrā ditiḥ śakra-pārṣṇi-grāheṇa viṣṇunā ). Therefore, the Lord was clearly partial to Indra, although He is the Supersoul in everyone’s heart. The soul is extremely dear to everyone, and similarly the Supersoul is also dear to everyone. Thus there cannot be any faulty action on the part of the Supersoul. The Lord is always kind to all living entities, irrespective of form and situation, yet He took the side of Indra just like an ordinary friend. This was the subject of Parīkṣit Mahārāja’s inquiry. As a devotee of Lord Kṛṣṇa, he knew very well that Kṛṣṇa cannot be partial to anyone, but when he saw that Kṛṣṇa acted as the enemy of the demons, he was somewhat doubtful. Therefore he posed this question to Śukadeva Gosvāmī for a clear answer.
FAQs
Yes—this verse itself states that Bhagavān is samaḥ (equal) and suhṛt (well-wishing friend) of all beings, raising the apparent contradiction only to be resolved by the narrative that follows.
Because the Bhagavatam teaches that God is equal to all, yet many accounts describe the Lord protecting Indra and killing Daityas; Parīkṣit asks Śukadeva to explain how this is not bias but divine justice and līlā.
When you see apparent “unfairness,” remember that spiritual vision looks for dharma and the deeper welfare of all; avoid quick judgments and seek the principle behind outcomes rather than assuming favoritism.