Viśvanātha raises an objection. He reads the verse's 'aṁśa'-birth as Kṛṣṇa's manvantara-avatāra. Then he flags line 4: the claim that the portion-women became life-companions of the complete originals — that, he says, does not add up. Why not? The next line gives the rule it seems to break.

Here is the rule behind the objection. A portion merges back into its source; it does not stay standing beside it. Look at Droṇa and Dharā, the Vasu and the Earth: their manifestations Nanda and Yaśodā simply are them — the portion enters the source. So how could portion-women remain as separate companions of their own originals? That is the snag.

Viśvanātha grants it: 'True.' Yes, a portion does merge into its source — as a general rule. He accepts the principle, then shows it is not the whole story. His reply is a distinction, not a denial.

Here is the distinction. Among these portion-women, living in the worlds of the gods, three different courses show up. The merging rule holds for only one of the three. That is how line 4 can be true while the rule still stands.

It starts with hearing. Some of these celestial women hear Kṛṣṇa's pastimes from Nārada and other sages. Hearing kindles love, and they become devotees. Now he sorts these devotees into three kinds.

By their inner disposition these devotees split three ways, measured by how they relate to Kṛṣṇa's eternal associates: (1) pure followers, who simply want to follow the associates; (2) those whose following is tangled up with ahaṅgraha-upāsanā — worship in which the worshipper takes himself to be the Lord; and (3) those who do not follow the associates at all.

Take the first kind — the pure followers. Some of the gods among them become dear boyhood friends of Śrīdāmā, Subala, and the other cowherd boys. They join the eternal friends without dissolving into them.

And some of the goddesses become the prāṇa-sakhīs — friends dear as life — of Śrī Rādhā and the other chief gopīs. This is the exact case line 4 named: portions serving as companions of the complete originals. It holds true for this pure-following type.

In the same way, some became peer companions — men and women — of Nanda, Yaśodā, and the other elders, and enjoyed that friendship. So the first, pure-following kind spreads across all of Vraja's relationships, always as companions alongside, never merged in.

The second kind — those whose following was mixed with 'I-am-He' worship — did merge into the eternal associates, men into the men, women into the women. For exactly this kind the objector's merging rule holds. So the rule was never wrong; it just does not cover everyone.

Examples of this merging kind: Droṇa, Dharā, a Vasu and others folded into Nanda, Yaśodā, Uddhava and so on; and some ṛṣis folded into the cows and calves and the birds of Vṛndāvana. The very case the objector cited (Nanda being Droṇa) belongs here — to the second kind, not the first.

The third kind — the non-followers — never appeared in Vraja at all. They were left with their heart's wish unfulfilled. Lakṣmī and others are the example: they longed for Kṛṣṇa's Vraja intimacy but, having no following of the associates, they did not get in.

Here is why the third kind failed. You reach Kṛṣṇa's Vraja play by one road only: following his eternal associates. No following, no entry. That is the rule the whole threefold pattern turns on — and it explains why even Lakṣmī was left outside.

He now backs this with scripture: 'As it is said—.' A quotation is coming.

This Lord, the gopī's son, is not easily won by the body-bound, nor by the jñānīs, nor even by his own intimates — not the way he is won, right here, by those full of loving devotion.

He decodes the three classes in the verse. The 'body-bound' are those chasing the three worldly aims — dharma, artha, kāma. The 'jñānīs' add the fourth, liberation. The 'ātma-bhūtas,' his very own, are Brahmā, Śiva, and Lakṣmī. Note where Lakṣmī lands — among the highest, and still not admitted to Vraja.

The favor the gopī won from Kṛṣṇa, the giver of liberation — neither Brahmā, nor Śiva, nor even Lakṣmī who lives on his chest ever received it.

Why call exactly these three 'his own'? Because the earlier verse (10.9.20) is precisely about these three not getting the favor. And each is 'his own' for a reason: Brahmā and Śiva because they are his own avatāras (the guṇa-avatāras), and Lakṣmī because she is his svarūpa-śakti, his intrinsic potency. So 'ātma-bhūta' in the next verse means this same triad.

So the verse's lesson: for all three classes — the worldly, the jñānī, and even his own intimates — the gopī's son is not easily reached.

It is not that they get nothing. They can reach him — but only in his majestic forms: as the Lord in Vaikuṇṭha, as Rāma the son of Kauśalyā, and so on. The intimate gopī's son stays out of their reach.

But the gopī's son is different: he is won only by accepting hardship, and for anyone unwilling he yields only pain. The next lines say what that 'hardship' actually is.

What is that bhakti? The kind shown here in Vraja toward the gopī's son — the devotion the śruti points to in 'striya urugendra-bhoga-bhuja-daṇḍa...' and in 'tval-loka-vāsinyaḥ...' and the like. Those passages voice the gopīs' self-surrendering love.

So: those passages describe a bhakti made of following the eternal associates. For whoever has that following-love, Kṛṣṇa is easily won; for whoever lacks it, he is not. The dividing line is anugati.

This is the 'hardship' from before. To win the gopī's son you must accept being lower — taking the servant's place behind the gopīs and their associates. Only by embracing that self-lowering, which the proud feel as 'pain,' is he won.

But accepting that lowliness is just impossible for Brahmā, Śiva, Lakṣmī and their sort. They are proud of being lords, and each keeps to his or her own realm. They will not stoop. That, finally, is why scripture said 'not even Śrī, who rests on his chest, won this favor.' The verse and the whole argument close on the same point: no self-lowering, no Vraja-Kṛṣṇa.