Live the Bhāgavatam · SB 10.90.17
Īśānukathā· The Lord and His devoteesLonging for the Marks on Kṛṣṇa’s Chest
“Dear ocean, you are always roaring, not sleeping at night. Are you suffering insomnia? Or is it that, as with us, Mukunda has taken your insignias and you are hopeless of retrieving them?”
What the purport teaches
- Hearing the ocean’s constant roaring, the queens asked whether it was sleepless because Mukunda had taken its insignias.
- They confused the sea around Dvārakā with the Ocean of Milk, from which Lakṣmī and the Kaustubha gem arose. Lord Viṣṇu took them, and they now reside on His chest.
- The queens imagined that the ocean, like themselves, longed to see these marks again. Still more, they wished to see the kuṅkuma marks Kṛṣṇa had taken from their breasts during their last embrace.
Try this today
Read the verse once more, then pause to remember the Lord whom the queens long to see.
Ask yourself
How do the queens express their own longing through their sympathy for the ocean?
Carry the question through the day, then answer it in your own words before sleep.
From Canto 10, chapter 14 onward, the translation and purports were completed by Śrīla Prabhupāda's disciples after his departure, and published by the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust.