Bhaktivedanta VedaBase: Śrī Caitanya Caritāmrita Antya 9.10

prahlāda, bali, vyāsa, śuka ādi muni-gana

āsi' prabhu dekhi' preme haya acetana

SYNONYMS

prahlāda — Prahlāda Mahārāja; bali — Bali Mahārāja; vyāsa — Vyāsadeva; śuka — Śukadeva Gosvāmī; ādi — and so on; muni-gana — great sages; āsi' — coming; prabhu dekhi' — by seeing Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu; preme — in ecstatic love of Krishna; haya acetana — became unconscious.

TRANSLATION

Prahlāda Mahārāja, Bali Mahārāja, Vyāsadeva, Śukadeva Gosvāmī and other great sages came to visit Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. Upon seeing Him, they became unconscious in ecstatic love for Krishna.

PURPORT

According to the opinion of some historians, Prahlāda Mahārāja was born in Tretā-yuga in the city of Multan, in the state of Punjab. He was born of Hiranyakaśipu, a king of the dynasty of Kaśyapa. Prahlāda Mahārāja was a great devotee of Lord Vishnu, but his father was very much against Vishnu. Because the father and son thus differed in their consciousness, the demon father inflicted all kinds of bodily pain upon Prahlāda. When this torture became intolerable, the Supreme Lord appeared as Nrisimhadeva and killed the great demon Hiranyakaśipu.

Bali Mahārāja was the grandson of Prahlāda Mahārāja. The son of Prahlāda Mahārāja was Virocana, and his son was known as Bali. Appearing as Vāmana and begging Bali Mahārāja for three feet of land, the Lord took possession of the entire three worlds. Thus Bali Mahārāja became a great devotee of Lord Vāmana. Bali Mahārāja had one hundred sons, of whom Mahārāja Bāna was the eldest and most famous.

Vyāsadeva was the son of the great sage Parāśara. Other names for him are Sātyavateya and Krishna-dvaipāyana Bādarāyana Muni. As one of the authorities on the Vedas, he divided the original Veda, for convenience, into four divisions — Sāma, Yajur, Rig and Atharva. He is the author of eighteen Purānas as well as the theosophical thesis Brahma-sūtra and its natural commentary, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. He belongs to the Brahma-sampradāya and is a direct disciple of Nārada Muni.

Śukadeva Gosvāmī is the son of Vyāsadeva. He was a brahmacārī fully conscious of Brahman realization, but later he became a great devotee of Lord Krishna. He narrated Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam to Mahārāja Parīkshit.

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His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, Founder Ācārya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness