590
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam
[Canto 1, Ch. 11]
patnyaḥ —the ladies (wives of Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa);  patim —husband;  proṣya —who was away from home;  grha-anupāgatam —now returned home;  vilokya —thus seeing;  sañjāta —having developed;  manaḥ-mahā-utsavāḥ —a sense of joyful ceremony within the mind;  uttasthuḥ —got up;  ārāt —from a distance;  sahasā —all of a sudden;  āsanā —from the seats;  āśayāt —from the state of meditation;  sākam —along with;  vrataiḥ —the vow;  vrīḍita —looking coyly;  locana —eyes;  ānanāḥ —with such faces.
TRANSLATION
The queens of Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa rejoiced within their minds to see their husband home after a long period abroad. The queens got up at once from their seats and meditations. As was socially customary, they covered their faces shyly and looked about coyly.
PURPORT
As mentioned above, the Lord entered His home palaces occupied by 16,108 queens. This means that the Lord at once expanded Himself in as many plenary expansions as there were queens and palaces and entered in each and every one of them simultaneously and separately. Here is another manifestation of the feature of His internal potency: He can expand Himself in as many forms of spiritual identity as He desires, even though He is one without a second. It is confirmed by the  śruti mantra  that the Absolute is one alone, and yet He becomes many as soon as He so desires. These manifold expansions of the Supreme Lord are manifested as plenary and separated portions. The separated portions are representations of His energy, and the plenary portions are manifestations of His Personality. Thus the Personality of Godhead manifested Himself in 16,108 plenary expansions and simultaneously entered into each and every one of the palaces of the queens. This is called  vaibhava , or the transcendental potency of the Lord. And because He can do so, He is also known as  yogeśvara . Ordinarily a  yogī  or mystic living being is able to expand himself at utmost to tenfold expansions of his body, but the Lord can do so to the extent of as many thousands or infinitely, as He likes. Unbelievers become astonished to learn that Lord Kṛṣṇa married more than 16,000 queens because they think of Lord Kṛṣṇa as one of them and measure the potency of the Lord by their own limited potency. One should know, therefore, that the Lord is never on the level of the living beings who are but expansions of His marginal potency, and one should never equalize