Mukunda opens by naming the verse: 'anyeṣu…'. The bhakti it praises, he says, is bhakti in the form of rati — settled, mature love for Kṛṣṇa, not mere practice. That is the devotion even the liberated pray for.

Now Mukunda sets up his key reading. The 'Vaikuṇṭha' the verse compares Mathurā to is not some outer heaven — it means Kṛṣṇa's own realm called Goloka. The Gosvāmīs quote this verse precisely to show that even Goloka is a manifestation of Gokula's glory. So Mathurā's superiority is being measured against Goloka itself.

Mukunda backs this up. The Gosvāmīs themselves, in their Bṛhad-bhāgavatāmṛta, quote these very verses — including the one about the seven holy cities — and there they already explain 'Vaikuṇṭha' as meaning Goloka. So this is not Mukunda's invention; the authors gave the reading first.

He gives the proof-text. The Laghu-bhāgavatāmṛta says: 'Whatever goes by the name Goloka — that too is just an expansion of Gokula's glory.' So Goloka is glorious, but its glory is derived from Gokula.

Now he shows what that Goloka is like, as the Brahma-saṁhitā describes it. This introduces the run of quotations that follow.

The Brahma-saṁhitā verse: In his own realm named Goloka, and in the tiers below it — the abodes of Śiva and the Vaikuṇṭhas of Hari — Govinda apportioned to each its own measure of power. I worship that Govinda, the primeval Person. The point Mukunda draws: Goloka sits at the top, and the other realms receive their power from Govinda who dwells there.

And again, a little further on in the same Brahma-saṁhitā, at verse 5.56, it says the following.

The famous Brahma-saṁhitā description of Goloka: there the goddesses of fortune are the beloved girls, and the beloved is the Supreme Person himself; the trees grant every wish; the ground is packed with wish-fulfilling gems; the water is nectar; speech comes out as song; walking is dance; the flute is his dearest friend. And though the whole place is the supreme light of pure consciousness and bliss, it is at the same time something to be tasted and enjoyed.

The next Brahma-saṁhitā verse: There a vast ocean of milk flows from the surabhi cows, and there time — even a span as short as half a blink — never passes. I worship that Śvetadvīpa, which the saints here know as Goloka. And those saints are only a few, rarely found walking this earth.

The Laghu-bhāgavatāmṛta line: Goloka too is an expansion of that same [Gokula's] very self — and this follows because Gokula's glory stands higher. Mukunda quotes it now and will unpack it at s17 and s20.

He now points to another source: as is said in the Pātāla-khaṇḍa of the Padma Purāṇa. The next verse follows from there.

Here Mukunda quotes the mūla couplet itself as scriptural support from the Pātāla-khaṇḍa: Madhupurī is blessed, greater even than Vaikuṇṭha, since one day's stay there gives birth to devotion for Hari.

The continuation: Of the seven sacred cities, the Mathurā district is the highest of all. O Goddess, hear its glory — a glory that surpasses even the world of Vaikuṇṭha. This is the 'seven cities' verse Mukunda mentioned at s3.

Having quoted the verses, Mukunda now turns to explain them: here is what these verses mean. What follows is his phrase-by-phrase gloss.

Mukunda now interprets each phrase of the Brahma-saṁhitā verse. On 'the goddesses of fortune are his beloveds, the Supreme Person their lover': even though no wedding is mentioned, the settled sense there is that they are his own wives (svakīyā), not others' wives (parakīyā). In Goloka the relationship reads as married love.

On the next phrases — 'the trees are wish-trees, the ground is of wish-gems,' and so on — Mukunda says these show that in Goloka opulence and majesty (aiśvarya) predominate. Goloka is marked by grandeur.

Returning to the Laghu-bhāgavatāmṛta line quoted at s10, Mukunda spells out its subject: 'its' means Goloka's. So the line asserts that Goloka is an expansion (vaibhava) of Gokula's own self. He will give the reason ('because Gokula's glory is higher') at s20.

The Dāna-keli-kaumudī verse (part one): Whatever potency is famed in the Vedas, sacrifices, holy places, mantras, and austerities; in heaven and all its gods; in the great mystic perfections; and even in both the spiritual-energy realm and Vaikuṇṭha — a potency deeper than all of that shines in the holy Mathurā region.

Completing the Dāna-keli-kaumudī verse: '…that deeper potency shines in Mathurā, and swells fuller still in Vṛndāvana, O beautiful one.' Mukunda's point: even the majesty (aiśvarya) that was just praised is, in the end, only a playful expression of Gokula's own essential nature. Vṛndāvana/Gokula holds the fullest measure; Goloka's grandeur is a display drawn from it.

Mukunda now supplies the reason left open at s17. The verse's phrase 'because of the height of that glory' means: because Gokula surpasses Goloka in glory. That greater glory is exactly why Goloka counts as an expansion of Gokula, and not the reverse.

Mukunda names his evidence. The proof of this very point — Mathurā's supremacy over Vaikuṇṭha/Goloka — is supplied by the two verses he quoted from the Pātāla-khaṇḍa, the pair beginning 'Oh, blessed Madhupurī…' (quoted at s12 and s13).

He restates the key gloss for the just-quoted verse: 'greater than Vaikuṇṭha' here means 'greater than Goloka.' So Madhupurī outweighs Goloka itself.

He fixes the referent of 'Madhupurī': it means the whole Mathurā region, twenty yojanas across — not just the city proper, but the entire sacred territory.

He explains 'the Mathurā region' (māthuram): it means the Mathurā district, which exists in two forms — as Gokula, the cowherd countryside, and as the city (pura) of Mathurā. Both together make up the region.

He confirms the twofold division with a quote from the same Laghu-bhāgavatāmṛta: 'They call the Mathurā region twofold — Gokula and the city.' So scripture itself divides Mathurā into the pastoral Gokula and the town.

The Upadeśāmṛta verse gives an ascending ladder: Madhupurī, sprung from Vaikuṇṭha, is higher than it; higher still is Vṛndāvana, for the rāsa festival held there; higher again is Govardhana, for Kṛṣṇa's generous play; and higher even than that is Rādhā-kuṇḍa, because it overflows with the love-nectar of Gokula's lord. What discerning person, then, would not serve Rādhā-kuṇḍa, resting at the foot of that hill?

Mukunda applies his reading again: even in this Upadeśāmṛta verse, 'born from Vaikuṇṭha' must be taken as 'born from Goloka.' Only that reading fits the sense. He gives his reason next.

Here is the reason. The verse's context is Kṛṣṇa's birth. It would make no sense, in a passage about where Kṛṣṇa takes birth, to bring up some ordinary Vaikuṇṭha where he is not born. So 'Vaikuṇṭha' here must mean Goloka, his own birth-realm — the comparison stays within Kṛṣṇa's abodes.

An objection is raised: If Vṛndāvana is exalted precisely because the rāsa dance happens there, does that mean there is no rāsa in Goloka? Mukunda answers bluntly: no, there is not. He gives the reasons in the next two segments.

First reason there is no rāsa in Goloka: the rāsa dance is not fitting with one's own wives. Since in Goloka the gopīs are cast as Kṛṣṇa's own wives (svakīyā, per s15), the rāsa — whose flavor depends on the paramour mood — has no proper place there.

Second reason, confirming the first: this is also why we never hear of a rāsa dance in Dvārakā. There too Kṛṣṇa is with his queens as their husband (svakīyā), so no rāsa is reported. The parallel proves the point about Goloka.

The Chando'ṣṭādaśaka verse: Kṛṣṇa showed his relatives Vaikuṇṭha in full, then brought them back to the cowherd village — plainly teaching them that no realm anywhere is lovelier than the Vṛndā forest. May that Mukunda protect you. The story itself ranks Vṛndāvana above Vaikuṇṭha.

Once more Mukunda applies his reading: in this verse too, the word 'Vaikuṇṭha' refers to Goloka. So the story is that Kṛṣṇa showed his kinsmen Goloka and still brought them back to Gokula — again ranking Gokula higher.

Mukunda draws it together. In Goloka, Kṛṣṇa and his companions do enact many pastimes — but not the rāsa or the dāna (playful toll-taking) and their like. And even in the other pastimes they do perform there, the vividness is not the same as in Gokula. Gokula's pastimes shine with a fullness Goloka's lack.

To support that last point, Mukunda points to the Bṛhad-bhāgavatāmṛta: as, for instance, it says there. A series of quotations follows.

The first Bṛhad-bhāgavatāmṛta verse (a devotee's meditation): The all-knowing Lord, master of Vaikuṇṭha, is surely none other than the son of Nanda. His consorts — Lakṣmī and the rest — I see as headed by Rādhikā; and his servants and attendants I see as the cowherd boys of Vraja. The meditator keeps mapping every Vaikuṇṭha feature back onto Vraja.

The devotee's lament continues: And yet, here in the land of Vraja, I do not see the Lord and his companions sporting as [I imagine they do in Vaikuṇṭha]. At this, my mind grew sad. He aches at the seeming absence of the full pastimes on the earthly Vraja.

The devotee goes on: Yet at some moments I do glimpse him there — sporting in the groves thick with cows, radiant — seated on his own seat just as before, and in every way like his Vaikuṇṭha Lord. So the vision does come, but only fitfully, and still colored by the Vaikuṇṭha-mood of lordship.

The lament concludes: And still my mind is not satisfied. Because I keep thinking of him as the Supreme Lord, and keep remembering that he came from Vaikuṇṭha, a sense of awe and reverence rises up — and that very awe drains away the intimate love. Reverence crowds out closeness, so the heart stays unfulfilled. This is exactly why the aiśvarya-tinged pastimes of Goloka do not give the full relish.

The Vraja-vilāsa verse gives the full ascending ladder: Vaikuṇṭha is served in awe by hundreds of thousands of Lakṣmīs. Dearer than Vaikuṇṭha is Dvārakā, ringed by Kṛṣṇa's brothers and sons, where he sports with crowned queens each outshining a hundred Lakṣmīs. Better even than Dvārakā is Mathurā, the field of love, because Hari took birth there. And within Mathurā, Śrī Vraja shines most brilliant of all — that very Vraja I worship eternally.

Mukunda draws the practical conclusion. Those who regard Kṛṣṇa as the Lord of all, and who practice regulated devotion — hearing, chanting, and so on — reach that abode through the love (prema) their practice ripens into. Their reverential path leads to the Vaikuṇṭha/Dvārakā side of the realm, in keeping with their aiśvarya-mood.

For exactly this reason, Mukunda says, that same text (the Laghu-bhāgavatāmṛta) goes on to say the following. He introduces the next quotation.

The Laghu-bhāgavatāmṛta verse: The one whose dwelling is famed in the Purāṇas in four places — Vraja, Madhupura (Mathurā city), Dvārakā, and Goloka. This lists Kṛṣṇa's four renowned abodes.

Mukunda reads the order carefully: the four places are listed so that each later one is lesser than the one before. Vraja is highest, then Madhupura, then Dvārakā, and Goloka comes last in this particular ranking. The sequence itself encodes a descent.

Here is why the authors said so little about Goloka in this context: because in Goloka majesty (aiśvarya) predominates. Since the topic here is the sweeter, more intimate glory, they simply did not dwell on the majesty-dominated Goloka. Its ranking-last and its brief treatment share the same cause.

One further point, says Mukunda. In that same work the authors quote a passage from the Padma Purāṇa and settle a doctrinal conclusion on its basis. He gives the quoted passage next.

Namely — as follows. A simple lead-in to the Padma Purāṇa quotation.

The Padma Purāṇa passage: Then all the people of that place — Nanda the cowherd and the rest, along with their children and wives, and the animals, birds, and deer — by the grace of Vāsudeva took on divine forms, boarded celestial craft, and reached the supreme Vaikuṇṭha world. On its face it says the residents of Vraja went up to Vaikuṇṭha.

On this Padma Purāṇa passage, Mukunda notes, there are two summarizing verses (kārikās). He quotes them next.

The first kārikā resolves the apparent problem. Those who went up to Vaikuṇṭha were the partial portions (aṁśa) of Vraja's king and the others — figures like Droṇa who had descended to earth. It was only these portion-beings that Kṛṣṇa sent to Vaikuṇṭha. This, the verse says, is the correct understanding — the eternal Vrajavāsīs did not leave.

The second kārikā is given only by its opening words: 'even than the dearmost ones…' (from Laghu-bhāgavatāmṛta 1.5.488-9). The fragment points to a further gradation — something surpasses even Kṛṣṇa's dearmost associates — but the quotation is left at its incipit here.

Mukunda applies his standing reading to the Padma passage. 'The supreme Vaikuṇṭha world' that Nanda and the rest reached means Goloka. He does not re-argue it here, because he already established, back at the 'aho madhupurī dhanyā' verse, that 'Vaikuṇṭha' is to be read as Goloka. So the residents ascended to Goloka, Kṛṣṇa's own realm.

He presses the point using one word. The adjective 'supreme' (parama) in 'the supreme Vaikuṇṭha world' clinches it all the more strongly: it is Goloka that was attained. 'Supreme' would not fit an ordinary Vaikuṇṭha; it fits the topmost realm, Goloka.

One more gloss on the Padma passage. The phrase 'together with their children, wives, and the rest' should also be understood to mean: together with the forms of Śrī Kṛṣṇa and his associates that are appropriate to that realm. So on entering Goloka they are joined not merely to their families but to the fitting Kṛṣṇa-related forms of that world.

Mukunda closes with a note of humility. In venturing to unfold something of this hidden, deeper meaning, I am being rather bold — it is a kind of presumption on my part. He half-apologizes for having drawn out the esoteric sense at all.

He finishes the appeal. O associates of Śrī Prabhu, you whose minds are as deep and vast as the ocean — [kindly bear with] this natural forwardness of mine. He asks the great devotees, broad-hearted as the sea, to excuse the boldness he confessed in the previous line.