168
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam
[Canto 1, Ch. 3]
well as indirectly empowered Lord Buddha, created faith in the mass of people. The incarnations of Rāma and Dhanvantari displayed His fame, and Balarāma, Mohinī and Vāmana exhibited His beauty. Dattātreya, Matsya, Kumāra and Kapila exhibited His transcendental knowledge. Nara and Nārāyaṇa Rṣis exhibited His renunciation. So all the different incarnations of the Lord indirectly or directly manifested different features, but Lord Kṛṣṇa, the primeval Lord, exhibited the complete features of Godhead, and thus it is confirmed that He is the source of all other incarnations. And the most extraordinary feature exhibited by Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa was His internal energetic manifestation of His pastimes with the cowherd girls. His pastimes with the  gopīs  are all displays of transcendental existence, bliss and knowledge, although these are manifested apparently as sex love. The specific attraction of His pastimes with the  gopīs  should never be misunderstood. The  Bhāgavatam  relates these transcendental pastimes in the Tenth Canto. And in order to reach the position to understand the transcendental nature of Lord Kṛṣṇa's pastimes with the  gopīs , the  Bhāgavatam  promotes the student gradually in nine other cantos.
According to Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī's statement, in accordance with authoritative sources, Lord Kṛṣṇa is the source of all other incarnations. It is not that Lord Kṛṣṇa has any source of incarnation. All the symptoms of the Supreme Truth in full are present in the person of Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, and in the  Bhagavad-gītā  the Lord emphatically declares that there is no truth greater than or equal to Himself. In this stanza the word  svayam  is particularly mentioned to confirm that Lord Kṛṣṇa has no other source than Himself. Although in other places the incarnations are described as  bhagavān , because of their specific functions, still nowhere are they declared to be the Supreme Personality. In this stanza the word  svayam  signifies the supremacy as the  summum bonum .
The  summum bonum  Kṛṣṇa is one without a second. He Himself has expanded Himself in various parts, portions and particles as  svayam-rūpa ,  svayam-prakāśa ,  tadekātmā ,  prabhava ,  vaibhava ,  vilāsa ,  avatāra ,  aveśa , and  jīvas , all provided with innumerable energies just suitable to the respective persons and personalities. Learned scholars in transcendental subjects have carefully analyzed the  summum bonum  Kṛṣṇa to have sixty-four principal attributes. All the expansions or categories of the Lord possess only some percentages of these attributes. But Śrī Kṛṣṇa is the possessor of the attributes cent percent. And His personal expansions such as  svayam-prakāśa ,  tadekātmā  up to the categories of the  avatāras , who are all  Viṣṇu-tattva , possess up to ninety-three percent of these transcendental attributes. Lord Śiva, who is neither  avatāra  nor  aveśa  nor in between them, possesses