Viśvanātha opens by stating the point of the verse. Even the other rasa-authorities who came after Jīva have, when you look at the truth of the matter, no real disagreement here. It is to make this clear that Rūpa speaks the verse beginning "laghutvam."

Viśvanātha glosses the verse's claim. When the earlier teachers called the paramour "low," that lowness applies only to the ordinary worldly hero. Why only him? Because it is only in the worldly case that acting as a paramour is a breach of dharma.

A first reason why the worldly paramour is low. His involvement makes the woman someone to be kept at arm's length, watched and warded off — his conduct brings her shame and distance.

A second reason. The worldly paramour is the very cause of the woman's fall into hell — the sin binds her to a lower destiny. So his lowness is not a mere social label but a real spiritual harm.

A third reason, and the summing-up. In the end the worldly paramour brings about only pain. For these reasons — shunning, hell, and final sorrow — his lowness stands. All of this applies to the worldly hero, not to Kṛṣṇa.

A further reason the worldly paramour is low, this time from how his deeds work in poetry and drama. When such a hero's doings are staged and enjoyed as worthy fare, two things follow. First, by the maxim that the wrongdoer's guilt clings even to whoever reports his deed, the poet who depicts it is touched. Second, in the very act of savoring it, the audience too takes on a likeness to that wrong. So the whole business carries a touch of dharma-violation. None of this can attach to Kṛṣṇa.

Viśvanātha now turns to the second half of the mūla, "na kṛṣṇe" — not in Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa is the very crest-jewel and chief among those who govern dharma and adharma. He raises the question the verse answers: why is lowness not stated of him? The answer comes next.

Now the answer, from the mūla's own words "rasa-niryāsa-svādārtham." Lowness is not spoken of Kṛṣṇa because he is there for the sake of tasting the essence of rasa. Whose tasting? The connoisseurs', who as the audience relish that essence — Kṛṣṇa is its object, and they themselves are the ones doing the relishing. Kṛṣṇa must stay high so that their relish has a worthy object.

Viśvanātha spells out the consequence. If those authorities had called Kṛṣṇa low as well, then the connoisseurs' relish of rasa's essence would be left with nothing to rest on — no worthy object at all. That is why lowness is denied of Kṛṣṇa: to keep the object of relish intact.

Viśvanātha decodes the mūla's word avatārini — "in the source of the descents." His argument runs from the smaller case to the larger. Even an ordinary avatāra is not bound by dharma and adharma, as śruti and smṛti agree. If that is true of a mere avatāra, how much more of Kṛṣṇa, who is the very root and source of all avatāras. So he stands entirely beyond the reach of any charge of lowness.

Viśvanātha now gathers a chain of authorities to make his point. He introduces "the meaning is this," then lines up three concurring witnesses on how obstruction heightens love: the sage Bharata in the line "much is forbidden," Rudra in "crookedness and rarity," and the Saṁhitā in "where there is a special prohibition." The sentence continues into the quotations that follow.

The quoted verse ranks three kinds of woman by what binds them. The wife clings from duty, taking shelter in no one else. The ordinary other-man's-wife can be bought with wealth. But the parakīyā heroine is moved by love alone — nothing else. That is exactly why those of deep, passionate love hold her the highest.

This citation makes the same point from the Bhāgavata. First it declares the rāsa-play of the brides of Vraja to be the one truth and the one blessing. Then it addresses an objection: yes, the wise call the love of a wedded woman and a paramour "secondary," but that verdict is laid down for everyone except Kṛṣṇa and the gopīs. Their case is exempt.

One more authority, the author of the Alaṅkāra-kaustubha, agrees. In the transcendent, non-worldly sphere, love for a wedded woman is spoken of as the very highest and most celebrated of loves. It is not driven by any impropriety. Two reasons are given: by the maxim that what is beyond the world is, for the perfected, an adornment and not a flaw; and because such love simply lies past the reach of ordinary reasoning. Worldly logic cannot sit in judgment on it.

Viśvanātha now offers a second way to read the same mūla phrase, marked "or else" (yad vā) — and both readings stand together; he does not drop the first. On this reading, "for the tasting of rasa's essence" does not mean the connoisseurs taste Kṛṣṇa (as in the first reading); it means Kṛṣṇa has descended in order to make his own devotees, living here in the created world, taste the essence of rasa. So the tasting is something Kṛṣṇa brings about for his devotees, not something done to him.

A short grammatical note backing the previous reading. The word svāda here is built from the root svad of the cur-class, which carries a causative sense, and takes the suffix ghyañ. That is why svāda can mean "causing to taste" — exactly the causal sense (āsvādayitum, "to make taste") the second reading needs.

On this second reading, Viśvanātha adds an important point. Kṛṣṇa's own relishing of rasa's essence — where he himself is the one relishing — never stops. It is present always, in the manifest pastime that appears in this world and equally in the unmanifest pastime that does not. His tasting is not confined to the visible descent.

Viśvanātha explains what "manifest" and "unmanifest" really mean. The very same pastimes — birth and the rest — are called manifest when Kṛṣṇa mercifully shows them to the people of the world, and unmanifest when they are screened and hidden from human eyes. The difference is only in whether we can see them. In their own essential nature the manifest and unmanifest pastimes are not different in the least.

A pointer word. To back the claim that the pastimes are beginningless and only occasionally shown, Viśvanātha says "as stated in the Bhāgavatāmṛta," announcing the verse he is about to quote.

The quoted verse states the point directly. The pastimes of birth and so on are beginningless and wondrous — they always are. Kṛṣṇa merely brings them into view now and then, for one reason or another. So their manifestation is an occasional showing, not a fresh coming-into-being.

Viśvanātha closes his commentary with a graceful two-line verse. This first line names its subject: the view held on this matter by the revered Śrī Jīva Gosvāmī. He speaks of Jīva with the honorific "his feet," and leaves the sentence open for the next line.

The second line completes the verse, and with it Viśvanātha states his own position. Having named Jīva's view in the first line, he says: this — the view he has just set out (that the pastimes are beginningless, manifest and unmanifest alike) — is what he himself holds by his own conviction and honors, and not the other view. He records his own reading plainly, while still having named Jīva with full respect.

Now Viśvanātha turns to refute a view. One cannot claim that in the unmanifest pastime it is always only wedded (svakīyā) union.

Nor can one say this: that the pastime is eternal and the paramour-status is real in the unmanifest līlā, but that in the manifest līlā, for just a few days, that paramour-status is only illusory, not real. That cannot be maintained.

Here is why it cannot be maintained. The rāsa-dance is the crest-jewel of all Kṛṣṇa's pastimes, and from beginning to middle to end it is saturated with the paramour mood. If that mood were merely illusory, then the rāsa-līlā itself would be un-adoptable — not worthy of relish. That absurd result rules the view out.

He now strings a chain of Bhāgavata verses — one after another from the rāsa chapters. The gopīs are forbidden by husbands and kin; they abandon husbands, children, friends; they forget their own homes; they give up world, Veda, and family for Kṛṣṇa; and Kṛṣṇa multiplies himself while the vraja-men only think their wives are beside them. All these words of Śuka, of Kṛṣṇa, and of the gopīs prove that the rāsa-dance is made of the paramour mood — not of wedded union.

A further bad consequence: the Bhāgavata verse 'not even Lakṣmī won this grace of his utter love' establishes that the vraja-beauties surpass even Lakṣmī. But if the rāsa-mood were illusory, then this superiority too would become unreal.

In the same way, the statement 'by his playful love the beloved-ones' pre-eminence' points to the uncommonness of Kṛṣṇa's own quality too. But if the rāsa-mood were illusory, this uncommonness would be left with no proof at all.

And besides, nowhere, by no one, has the rāsa-dance ever been described as a wedded-union affair. There simply is no such account.

Someone might try an escape: 'Keep the rāsa-dance of the five chapters, but strip out the paramour portions as delusion-imagined; the rest is worth adopting.' Viśvanātha says even this cannot be said.

Why the escape fails: verses like 'I cannot repay your faultless love even with a whole lifetime of the gods' measure the very summit of prema. Cut out the paramour portions and these verses too would be forced into unreality — an unacceptable result.

Another link falls too. The verse 'those who worshipped me after snapping the unbreakable chains of home' names a real deed. That deed is what establishes the Lord's being conquered by their prema, hinted at in 'I cannot repay your love.' If the home-breaking portion is unreal, this being-conquered-by-love cannot be established at all.

Now he grants a point for argument's sake: fine, let it even be that the Lord — supreme master of māyā — speaks such words only to delight the gopīs, so his own words could be called unreal.

But (kintu) the concession does not save the view — because the witness here is not the Lord but Uddhava, crest-jewel of saints and a great knower. In his verse 'may I become a shrub or creeper of Vṛndāvana touched by their foot-dust,' he conveys that the gopīs' prema exceeds even the clever queens. And the very reason he gives for that excess is: 'having abandoned the hard-to-give-up path of the noble.' A sober sage states the abandonment as the real ground.

Follow the consequence. If the gopīs' abandoning of kin and the noble path were only apparent, then its role as a cause would be unreal too — and so the great excess of prema it was meant to establish would collapse into unreality.

And there is a worse cost: Uddhava, the one who spoke it, would then turn out to have been deluded — an impossible conclusion about so great a knower.

A fresh line of proof, from the mantras. The two great Kṛṣṇa-mantras — of ten and of eighteen syllables, worshipped from beginningless time and taught in Āgama, Veda, Pāñcarātra and elsewhere — even their inner meaning is understood as full of the paramour (paroḍhā-upapati) mood, not wedded union.

He tests the wording. Take the phrase 'let it be given to the beloved (vallabha) of the brāhmaṇa-women.' Saying this does not convey that the brāhmaṇīs are his wives. 'Beloved' does not carry the wife-relation.

Suppose someone insists the wife-sense is felt anyway. Then it is felt only by a dolt — a mere bower who does not think — not by the learned who are well-versed in grammar, rhetoric, and the rest.

Here is the contrasting case that shows how strange word-power is. Say instead 'this man's brāhmaṇī is to be taken away,' with no qualifier attached. Now the wife-sense does come through: the brāhmaṇī is understood to be his own wife. The bare genitive 'asya' (his) with brāhmaṇī yields wifehood — whereas 'vallabha of the brāhmaṇīs' did not.

But say it with 'vallabha' — 'these brāhmaṇīs are his beloveds,' or 'he is the brāhmaṇīs' beloved' — and what comes through is exactly the paramour sense, belonging-to-another. On such fine points the authority is nothing but the trained heart of the connoisseur.

He adds a caution about that very wife-form. Even 'asya brāhmaṇī' — 'his brāhmaṇī' meaning his wife — is used only in corrupt, colloquial speech. No competent authority ever uses it that way in proper composition. So even that reading is substandard.

Now the grammatical spelling-out. 'Brāhmaṇī' can be formed two ways — Viśvanātha keeps both open with 'vā': the feminine suffix may mean 'a man's wife' (puṁ-yoga) or 'a woman of the brāhmaṇa class' (jāti). Take the first. 'Asya' (his) is the word 'idam,' and 'idam' cannot construe with only a part of a word — only with a whole word. So the base 'brāhmaṇa' inside 'brāhmaṇī' is read as 'belonging to some other brāhmaṇa' — she is another man's, not his.

Now take the second derivation, 'brāhmaṇī' as 'a woman of brāhmaṇa class.' Then 'asya' (his) is a plain genitive. But a genitive needs a relation to fix its sense — and by what relation is it connected here? Nothing in the words forces the wife-relation.

The objector retreats to context: 'Grant that the words don't fix it — the context alone conveys the wedded relation.' Viśvanātha answers: no, context yields many relations, not the wife-relation. In a temple, or at a worship or śrāddha, if someone says 'you yourself, summon the brāhmaṇī,' what is understood is the priest's wife — the ācārya's lady — not one's own wife.

He drives the point home with a whole range. The same word 'brāhmaṇī,' shifted only by context, yields: in an outer-service setting, a maidservant; in an affection setting, a sister; in one's own bedroom, one's own wife; and in a secret grove, even a paramour-relation could arise. Context thus fixes many different relations — so context cannot be trusted to single out the wife-relation for the mantra's words.

Viśvanātha guards the reading he has just given the two mantras. Taking them in this sense brings in no fault whatsoever. There is nothing objectionable about reading them so.

Why is there no fault? Because it has already been declared: a thing of this sort is an ornament to Kṛṣṇa's being beyond the ordinary, not a blemish on him. What would be a flaw in a worldly hero adorns the one who stands outside worldly rules.

Now Viśvanātha marshals proof texts. The Gopāla-stava-rāja in the Gautamīya-tantra, which is the meditation-form of the Gopāla mantra, describes Kṛṣṇa as "surrounded by gopa-women adorned with wondrous voices." His point turns on the word nārī: by settled usage it means a wedded woman, a wife. So the gopīs are named as Kṛṣṇa's own wives even in the mantra's own meditation.

A second proof, from the Krama-dīpikā. In its midday meditation on the same mantra one is told: "meditate on him surrounded by crowds of cows, cowherds, and cowherd women, his lovely body glowing like a dense rain-cloud." Here too the gopa-women stand around Kṛṣṇa in the very form the mantra prescribes for meditation.

He piles up further lines from the same Krama-dīpikā. Its dawn, midday, and evening meditations on the mantra describe Kṛṣṇa in Vraja: "deep sapphire-blue within," and "his chest grey-dusted with the dust the cows raise." Each detail is the cowherd Kṛṣṇa of the manifest Vraja pastime, held up as the object of daily meditation. The sentence runs on into the next quoted lines.

The quotation continues, still describing the meditation-form: Kṛṣṇa engaged in killing the demons who burdened the earth — the cart-demon, Pūtanā, and the others. These are the child-pastimes of manifest Vraja, again set out as the object of the mantra's dhyāna.

A one-word connective: "likewise." It only introduces the next quoted meditation-verse that follows.

Now the birth-meditation verse itself: "I bow to that son of Devakī, just born, glowing like the sky, robed in yellow, holding conch, discus, mace, and lotus that gleam in his hands." The very act of Kṛṣṇa's appearance is set here as the object of homage and meditation.

A long meditation verse strings together Kṛṣṇa's Vraja and Dvārakā deeds as the object of dhyāna before japa: laid crying in his cradle and rocked by the gopīs; tearing Pūtanā with his arms, her limbs burst by his suckling; splitting the crane-demon Baka; dancing on Kālīya's hoods; lifting Mount Govardhana on his raised left arm. It then adds an alternative form to picture — "or else" mounted on Garuḍa with Balarāma and Pradyumna, praised by the personified Fever that his own fever had crushed. The "or else" offers a second meditation-image, not a doctrinal choice, so both stand. Every image is a manifest pastime prescribed for worship.

One more meditation-image closes the string: Kṛṣṇa setting Rukmī and Balarāma, absorbed in their game of dice, at odds with one another — and one meditates on Hari so. Again a manifest Dvārakā episode is the prescribed object of remembrance.

Viśvanātha now draws his conclusion from the whole chain of proofs. Since all the manifest pastimes — birth and the rest — are laid down in these meditations; since the worshippers of the mantra have come down in unbroken succession from beginningless time; since, when their meditation ripens, they directly see Kṛṣṇa exactly in these forms; and since the same will be attained in the future as well — it is settled that the manifest pastime itself is eternal. Past worshippers, present realization, and future attainment all point to the one, ever-standing manifest līlā.

He calls a great authority to witness. Commenting on Gītā 4.9 — "my birth and deeds are divine; one who truly knows this..." — in the passage following "many of my births have passed" (4.5), even Śrī Rāmānujācārya, the commentator, has shown that Kṛṣṇa's birth, his deeds, his associates, and the rest have the authority of śruti and smṛti, and are eternal. So the eternity of the manifest pastime is not a new claim; the great bhāṣya-kāra taught it.

A second great commentator agrees. Even Śrī Madhusūdana Sarasvatī, glossing the same Gītā verse "my birth and deeds are divine," explained "divine" (divya) as "aprākṛta" — beyond material nature. So Kṛṣṇa's birth and deeds are, on this authority too, not products of matter but transcendental — which is why the manifest pastime can be eternal.

Now a śruti proof, the strongest kind. The Puruṣa-bodhinī of the Pippalāda branch declares: "the one God, ever devoted to eternal play, pervading his devotees, the indwelling Self within the devotee's heart." The word here is nitya-līlā — eternal play. So the Veda itself calls his līlā eternal.

A further authority in the same direction. The revered Śrī Viṭṭhalanātha Gosvāmī, in his own book Vidvan-maṇḍana, has established the very same thing about Kṛṣṇa's qualities, deeds, names, and forms — that they too are eternal. Another lineage-teacher thus confirms the point.

Viśvanātha now opens a longer scriptural proof. "For example," he says, this is sung in the Bṛhad-vāmana-purāṇa — and throughout its entire Uttara section. This sentence sets up the extended quotation that follows.

He sets the scene of the Purāṇic passage. There Brahmā speaks to Bhṛgu and the other sages; the account opens with "for sixty thousand years..." (their long austerity), and then — skipping ahead — comes Brahmā's speech again, which he is about to quote. This is a stage-setting line, not the proof itself.

The quoted account begins at cosmic dissolution. Long ago, when the material pralaya had come and everything manifest had merged back into the unmanifest, only the imperishable Brahman was left — pure consciousness, into which even time itself had dissolved. The verse sets the stage for what stands beyond that dissolution.

This is the heart of the proof. Even when all else has dissolved, one realm remains: a world made of the bliss of Brahman, all-pervading, named Vaikuṇṭha — free of material qualities, without beginning and without end. It abides right within the sole imperishable Brahman. So a divine abode persists through the very dissolution, beginningless and endless — that is, eternal.

The account continues. That imperishable supreme Brahman is the highest resting-place of the Vedas; and the person who dwells in that realm is praised by the Vedas as higher than the highest. After long praise he was pleased, and then, remaining unseen, he spoke to them (the personified Vedas). The scene now turns to a dialogue between the Lord and the Śrutis.

The Lord's words to the personified Vedas: "I am pleased. Speak, O wise ones — ask whatever boon your heart desires." He invites the Śrutis to name their wish, which sets up their request in the verses to come.

The Vedas, personified, now reply. "The supreme, quality-less form that we recite under the name 'Brahman' is beyond the reach of speech and mind, and for that reason it is not (directly) known." They confess that their own Brahman-word points to something they cannot themselves grasp — leading into their actual request.

The Śrutis state their actual boon. "That which the ancient knowers here call 'bliss alone' — show us that very form, if a boon is truly to be granted to us." They ask not for anything else but to behold the Lord's own form, the form the sages equate with pure bliss.

The Lord answers their prayer. Having heard this, he showed them a luminous realm beyond material nature — imperishable, made of nothing but pure experiential bliss. This is the transcendent abode the Śrutis then perceive; the verses following (outside this chunk) describe it as Vṛndāvana. The whole passage is adduced to prove that abode, and Kṛṣṇa's pastimes in it, are eternal.

The Lord's revealed realm is now described. Within it there is a forest named Vṛndāvana, its trees yielding every desire, lovely, thick with bowers, and carrying the flavor of all six seasons at once. This is the eternal abode being shown to the Śrutis.

Next the Govardhana hill is shown in that realm — with beautiful waterfalls and caves, made of gems and precious minerals, radiant, and alive with flocks of lovely birds. The description keeps building the eternal Vraja landscape the Śrutis are being shown.

Then the river Kālindī (the Yamunā) is shown — clear-watered, the best of rivers, both her banks studded with jewels, thronged with swans and lotuses. Forest, hill, and river: the full eternal setting of Vraja is laid before the Śrutis.

Now the pastime itself is shown: a throng of gopīs intoxicated by the joy of the many rāsa dances, and in the very center of that throng stands Acyuta (Kṛṣṇa) in his youthful, adolescent form. The Śrutis are shown not just the place but Kṛṣṇa with the gopīs in the rāsa — the eternal līlā.

Having shown them all this, the Lord speaks. "Tell me — what shall I do for you? You have now seen this realm of mine, and there is no boon greater than that." He points out that beholding his own eternal abode is itself the supreme gift, and asks if they wish anything further.

The Śrutis reply. "Seeing you, whose beauty equals ten million Kāmadevas, our minds have taken on the mood of women in love and are, beyond doubt, stirred by desire." Beholding Kṛṣṇa's beauty has awakened in them the longing of lovers — this leads directly to what they ask for next.

The Śrutis name their wish. "Just as the gopīs living in your realm worship you as their lover, in the very essence of amorous love — so a longing to do exactly the same has arisen in us." They ask to serve Kṛṣṇa the way the gopīs do, as beloved.

The Lord answers. "This fine wish of yours is indeed hard to attain and hard to bring about — yet, fully approved by me, it deserves to come true." He grants the boon: their aspiration to become gopīs, though difficult, will be fulfilled by his sanction.

The Lord tells them when and where. "When the next Brahmā is born and set to the work of creation, and the Sārasvata kalpa arrives, you will become gopīs in Vraja." He fixes the time — a future kalpa — for their aspiration to be fulfilled.

The Lord names the place. "On earth, in Bhārata, in the Mathurā region that is my own domain, in Vṛndāvana, in the circle of the rāsa dance, I myself will be there as your beloved." He promises to appear as their lover in the very rāsa they saw.

The Lord completes the promise. "By the way of a paramour you will gain a love that is beautiful, firm, and greater than everything else; attaining it in me, you will all become completely fulfilled." The gopī-love in the mood of a paramour is named as the highest, self-fulfilling attainment.

Brahmā, telling the story, concludes. "Having heard this, the Śrutis long meditated on the Lord's form; and when the appointed time came, they became gopīs and attained Hari." The promised fulfilment happens: the Śrutis do become gopīs and reach Kṛṣṇa.

Viśvanātha now gives the ācāryas' own reading of the whole passage. When the Śrutis prayed, "show us that form of yours," the form they meant was the one all Vedānta points to — beyond the material qualities, beyond speech and mind, made of pure bliss. And what the Lord showed in answer was Gokula, his own form present there, and the pastime being carried on there. So the very form Vedānta calls Brahman is shown to be Kṛṣṇa in Gokula with his līlā.

Viśvanātha draws the consequence. The whole reading works only on one condition: that this Gokula form itself carries the very marks just named — being the object of all Vedānta, beyond the qualities, beyond speech and mind, made of bliss. In other words, the Gokula-Kṛṣṇa the Śrutis saw must be that supreme Brahman, or the passage makes no sense.

The conclusion follows. Since the Gokula form must be that quality-less, blissful Brahman, its eternity is established with no room for objection. The Vraja form of Kṛṣṇa — and his līlā there — is eternal, exactly as the Brahman it is identified with.

Viśvanātha now brings a second proof. In the Tenth Canto itself, at Kṛṣṇa's name-giving ceremony, the all-knowing Gargācārya declared something on this very point — introducing the verse quoted next.

Gargācārya's words to Nanda. "Your son has many names and many forms, each matching his qualities and his deeds. I know them; ordinary people do not." The key words are that these names and forms already exist (santi) in the plural — the point Viśvanātha will press.

Viśvanātha reads the grammar. Because the verse says the names and forms 'santi' — 'they exist,' in the present tense and plural — it fixes that they exist already, now. They are not something merely to be produced later; the present-tense usage settles their present, standing existence.

Viśvanātha extends the point. The verse said the names and forms correspond to Kṛṣṇa's qualities (like generosity) and his deeds (like subduing Kāliya). So the same present, already-existing status applies to these too — the qualities and the deeds they match are likewise standing, not newly begun.

Viśvanātha defines the term. 'Corresponding' (anurūpa) means: having a form, an action, and so on that fit the particular occasion. Each name and form of Kṛṣṇa carries just the shape and activity that its moment calls for.

Viśvanātha gives the example. Take the deed of lifting Govardhana. The form and action fitting that occasion are: standing up, holding an arm raised, doing the actual lifting, and being the protector who sustains all the people of Gokula. This is what 'a form and action suited to the occasion' looks like concretely.

Viśvanātha states the conclusion. Names like these can be present, already-existing, only if the form and activity that give rise to them are themselves present and already-existing. Since Garga's verse affirms the names exist now, the Govardhana-form and its deed — and by extension Kṛṣṇa's forms and pastimes — must also be standing realities.

Viśvanātha argues by the reverse. If it were otherwise — if the activity ever stopped — then the name that depends on that activity would stop existing too. But Garga says the names always exist; so the activities behind them never cease. This is the counterfactual that clinches the eternity of Kṛṣṇa's forms and deeds.

Viśvanātha adds what comes next in the same source. The Lord's names are of the very nature of the undivided sound-Brahman (śabda-brahman). Since they are that imperishable sound-Brahman itself, they cannot be temporary — reinforcing that Kṛṣṇa's names, and the forms and pastimes they carry, are eternal.

The Lord's body is not really mundane; it only looks mundane because of a flaw in the one perceiving it. The same holds for his names. If they seem ordinary, that too is the perceiver's defect, not something in the name itself.

A name's looking like an ordinary word is caused by that very defect in the perceiver, and so on. So we must accept that all the names, exactly like the forms, are eternal.

Objection: Garga said the names are 'according to quality and deed'. That means the names come into being only after the qualities and deeds are performed. So how can such names be Brahman? Brahman is what stands unnegated in past, present and future. Reply: No.

The form and the deeds themselves do not originate — they only manifest. In the same way, the names that match them also only manifest. That is all; it is not that they are newly produced.

Otherwise, consider this: right after baby Kṛṣṇa drank Pūtanā's life along with her milk — which was long before he was ever named 'Govinda' — the elder wives of Vraja were placing protective seed-mantras on him. Yet in that very prayer they sang, 'May Govinda, at his play, protect the child,' and 'Govinda's flute, at whose sound the peacocks dance as if drunk.' If the name 'Govinda' were only produced later at his anointing, how could they possibly have uttered it then? So the name was already there.

So this is the rule: whatever name goes with a given form that is marked by a given deed, that very deed-marked form — and its name with it — is eternal.

In this world the only thing that happens is that these forms, names and deeds show themselves one after another, so that the devotees can taste each particular rasa (devotional mood). The sequence is for their tasting, not because the things are being made.

What we should accept is only this: that at times some one portion of it gets covered over. Nothing is ever destroyed or newly produced — it is only sometimes hidden from view.

It follows that the Lord is forever lifting Govardhana. He never stopped; that deed and its form go on eternally, even if we do not always see it.

The Lord, in his form of lifting Govardhana, along with the deed itself and the name that goes with it — 'the bearer of Govardhana's lifting' — remains forever. Form, deed and name stay together, eternally.

Precisely because the deed is going on eternally, devotees even today experience it directly — they perceive the Lord still lifting Govardhana.

This is why, here and there, people worship an image formed to show that very deed — the Lord lifting Govardhana — and remember him in that same posture.

If the deed were not really eternal — if it were something other than what the worshipper takes it to be — then worshipping the image as though the Lord were truly lifting Govardhana would be an offence. It is not an offence precisely because the deed really is ongoing.

And on the other view — that the deed is not really going on — such worship could not be a source of delight [to the Lord] at all; it would only give offence.

This is backed by the scriptural line, 'One who takes the Self — which really is one way — to be otherwise…' — such a person incurs fault. That is why misconceiving the Lord's nature is an offence.

And in fact we see it: when people worship the Lord in that ongoing-deed form, his grace does come to them. The experience confirms that the deed is real and eternal.

Given all this: since a form always carries a name, the name that matches the deed is likewise eternal. Form, deed and name stand or fall together — and all three are eternal.

So there is not even the faintest ground to suspect that the name is used merely figuratively (upacāra). The name is literally, really the Lord's — not a borrowed or secondary label.

Śrī Jīva Gosvāmī too, in his Bhagavat-sandarbha, explains the verse 'he for whom there is no [mundane] birth or deed' in exactly this same way — that the Lord's birth and activities are not mundane productions but eternal.

Here is how Jīva glosses it: in that verse, 'by his own māyā' means 'by his own-nature potency (svarūpa-śakti)' — not by the illusory māyā that binds ordinary beings.

Objection: the verse's word 'attains' seems to imply that it happens only occasionally. Reply: 'attains' here means he assumes it at every moment — that is, eternally; he never at any time gives it up. So the word does not imply anything occasional.

And one should understand that the Lord's being manifested by his own-nature potency (svarūpa-śakti) works reciprocally — the potency manifests him and he sustains the potency, each being cause to the other.