92 Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead

worm. When a man of small mystic power wants to show potency in the
presence of greater mystic power, he diminishes his own influence; he
does not increase it. Even a great personality like Brahma, when he wanted
to show his mystic power before Krsna, became ludicrous. Brahma was
thus confused about his own mystic power.

In order to convince Brahma that all those cews, calves and boys were
not the original ones, the cows, calves, and boys who were playing with
Krsna transformed into Visnu forms. Actually, the original ones were
sleeping under the spell of Brahma’s mystic power, but the present ones,
seen by Brahma, were all immediate expansions of Krsna, or Visnu. Visnu
is the expansion of Krsna, so the Visnu forms appeared before Brahma. All
the Visnu forms were of bluish color and dressed in yellow garments; all
of Them had four hands decorated with club, disc, lotus flower and conch-
shell. On Their heads were glittering golden jeweled helmets, They were
bedecked with pearls and earrings, and garlanded with beautiful flowers.
On Their chests was the mark of Srivatsa; Their arms were decorated with
armlets and other jewelry. Their necks were smooth just like the conch-
shell, Their legs were decorated with bells, Their waists decorated with
golden bells, and Their fingers decorated with jeweled rings. Brahma also
saw that upon the whole body of Lord Visnu, fresh tulast buds were
thrown, beginning from His lotus feet up to the top of the head. Another
significant feature of the Visnu forms was that all of Them were looking
transcendentally beautiful. Their smiling resembled the moonshine, and
Their glancing resembled the early rising of the sun. Just by Their glancing
They appeared as the creators and maintainers of the modes of ignorance
and passion. Visnu represents the mode of goodness, Brahma represents
the mode of passion, and Lord Siva represents the mode of ignorance.
Therefore as maintainer of everything in the cosmic manifestation, Visnu
is also creator and maintainer of Brahma and Lord Siva.

After this manifestation of Lord Visrnu, Brahma saw that many other
Brahmas and Sivas and demigods and even insignificant living entities
down to the ants and very small straws—movable and immovable living
entities—were dancing, surrounding Lord Visnu. Their dancing was ac-
companied by various kinds of music, and all of Them were worshiping
Lord Visnu. Brahma realized that all those Visnu forms were complete,
beginning from the anima perfection of becoming small like an atom, up
to becoming infinite like the cosmic manifestation. All the mystic powers
of Brahma, Siva, all the demigods and the twenty-four elements of cosmic
manifestation were fully represented in the person of Visnu. By the
influence of Lord Visnu, all subordinate mystic powers were engaged in
