36 Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead

mind control, faithfulness, charity, tolerance and performance of sacri-
fices. Lord Visnu is situated in everyone’s heart and is the leader of all
demigods, including Lord Siva and Lord Brahma. “We think that to kill
Lord Visnu is to persecute the great sages and braéhmanas,”’ said the
ministers.

Thus being advised by the demonic ministers, Karnsa, who was from the
very beginning the greatest rascal, decided to persecute the brahmanas and
Vaisnavas, being entrapped by the shackles of all-devouring, eternal time.
He ordered the demons to harass all kinds of saintly persons, and then he
entered his house. The adherents of Karnsa were all influenced by the
modes of passion as well as illusioned by the modes of ignorance, and
their only business was to create enmity with saintly persons. Such
activities can only reduce the duration of life. The demons accelerated the
process and invited their deaths as soon as possible. The result of per-
secuting saintly persons is not only untimely death. The act is so offensive
that the actor also gradually loses his beauty, his fame and his religious
principles, and his promotion to higher planets is also checked. Driven by
various kinds of mental concoctions, the demons diminish all kinds of
welfare. An offense at the lotus feet of the devotees and brahmanas is a
greater offense than that committed at the lotus feet of the Supreme
Personality of Godhead. Thus a godless civilization becomes the source of
all calamities.

Thus ends the Bhaktivedanta purport of the Fourth Chapter of Krsna,
“Kamsa Begins His Persecutions.”
