Text 36]
The Pāṇḍavas Retire Timely
815
word  dhatte , eternally accepted, (and not the word  dhatva , accepted for the occasion) is used. The idea is that the Lord does not create the incarnation of fish; He has eternally such a form, and the appearance and disappearance of such an incarnation serve particular purposes. In the  Bhagavad-gītā  the Lord says (Bg. 7.24-25), “The impersonalists think that I have no form and that I am formless, but that at present I have accepted a form to serve a purpose, and now I am manifested. But such speculators are factually without sharp intelligence. Though they may be good scholars in the Vedic literatures, they are practically ignorant of My inconceivable energies and My eternal forms of Personality. The reason is that I reserve the power of not being exposed to the nondevotees by My mystic curtain. The less intelligent fools are therefore unaware of My eternal form, which is never to be vanquished and is unborn.” In the  Padma Purāṇa  it is said that those who are envious and always angry at the Lord are unfit to know the actual and eternal form of the Lord. In the  Bhāgavatam  also it is said that the Lord appeared like a thunderbolt to those who were wrestlers. Śiśupāla, at the time of being killed by the Lord, could not see Him as Kṛṣṇa, being dazzled by the glare of the  brahmajyoti . Therefore, the temporary manifestation of the Lord as a thunderbolt to the wrestlers appointed by Kamsa, or the glaring appearance of the Lord before Śiśupāla, etc., were relinquished by the Lord, but the Lord as a magician is eternally existent and is never vanquished in any circumstance. Such forms are temporarily shown to the  asuras  only, and when such exhibitions are withdrawn, the  asuras  think that the Lord is no more existent, just as the foolish audience thinks the magician to be burnt to ashes or cut into pieces. The conclusion is that the Lord has no material body, and therefore He is never to be killed or changed by His transcendental body.
TEXT 36
यदा मुकुन्दो भगवानिमां महीं
जहौ स्वतन्वा श्रवणीयसत्कथः ।
तदाहरेवाप्रतिबुद्धचेतसा-
मभद्रहेतुः कलिरन्ववर्तत ॥३६॥
yadā mukundo bhagavān imāṁ mahīṁ jahau sva tanvā śravaṇīya-satkathaḥ tadāharevāprati-buddha-cetasām abhadra-hetuḥ kalir anvavartata