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Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 1.18.21
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A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
TEXT 21
- athāpi yat-pāda-nakhāvasṛṣṭaṁ
- jagad viriñcopahṛtārhaṇāmbhaḥ
- seśaṁ punāty anyatamo mukundāt
- ko nāma loke bhagavat-padārthaḥ
athatherefore — therefore; apicertainly — certainly; yatwhose — whose; pādanails of the feet-nakhanails of the feet — nails of the feet; avasṛṣṭamemanating — emanating; jagatthe whole universe — the whole universe; viriñcaBrahmājī — Brahmājī; upahṛtacollected — collected; arhaṇaworship — worship; ambhaḥwater — water; saalong with — along with; īśamLord Śiva — Lord Śiva; punātipurifies — purifies; anyatamaḥwho else — who else; mukundātbesides the Personality of Godhead Śrī Kṛṣṇa — besides the Personality of Godhead Śrī Kṛṣṇa; kaḥwho — who; nāmaname — name; lokewithin the world — within the world; bhagavatSupreme Lord — Supreme Lord; padaposition — position; arthaḥworth — worth.
Who can be worthy of the name of the Supreme Lord but the Personality of Godhead Śrī Kṛṣṇa? Brahmājī collected the water emanating from the nails of His feet in order to award it to Lord Śiva as a worshipful welcome. This very water [the Ganges] is purifying the whole universe, including Lord Śiva.
The conception of many gods in the Vedic literatures by the ignorant is completely wrong. The Lord is one without a second, but He expands Himself in many ways, and this is confirmed in the Vedas. Such expansions of the Lord are limitless, but some of them are the living entities. The living entities are not as powerful as the Lord's plenary expansions, and therefore there are two different types of expansions. Lord Brahmā is generally one of the living entities, and Lord Śiva is the via medium between the Lord and the living entities. In other words, even demigods like Lord Brahmā and Lord Śiva, who are the chief amongst all demigods, are never equal to or greater than Lord Viṣṇu, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The goddess of fortune, Lakṣmī, and all-powerful demigods like Brahmā and Śiva are engaged in the worship of Viṣṇu or Lord Kṛṣṇa; therefore who can be more powerful than Mukunda (Lord Kṛṣṇa) to be factually called the Supreme Personality of Godhead? The goddess of fortune, Lakṣmījī, Lord Brahmā and Lord Śiva are not independently powerful; they are powerful as expansions of the Supreme Lord, and all of them are engaged in the transcendental loving service of the Lord, and so also are the living entities. There are four sects of worshipful devotees of the Lord, and the chief amongst them are the Brahma-sampradāya, Rudra-sampradāya and Śrī-sampradāya, descending directly from Lord Brahmā, Lord Śiva and the goddess of fortune, Lakṣmī, respectively. Besides the above-mentioned three sampradāyas, there is the Kumāra-sampradāya, descending from Sanat-kumāra. All of the four original sampradāyas are still scrupulously engaged in the transcendental service of the Lord up to date, and they all declare that Lord Kṛṣṇa, Mukunda, is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and no other personality is equal to Him or greater than Him.