Text 17] Birth of Emperor Pariksit 627

prosperous life. After the Battle of Kuruksetra, even up to the next genera-
tion of Maharaja Yudhisthira was annihilated, and there were none who
could generate another son in the great royal family. Maharaja Pariksit,
the son of Abhimanyu, was the only surviving heir apparent in the family,
and by the irresistible supernatural brahmastra weapon of Aégvatthama, he
was forced to be annihilated. Lord Krsna is described herein as Visnu, and
this is also significant. Lord Krsna, the original Personality of Godhead,
does the work of protection and annihilation in His capacity as Visnu.
Lord Visnu is the plenary expansion of Lord Krsna. The all-pervasive
activities of the Lord are executed by Him in His Visnu feature. Child
Pariksit is described here as spotlessly white because he is an unalloyed
devotee of the Lord. Such unalloyed devotees of the Lord appear on the
earth just to execute the mission of the Lord. The Lord desires the
conditioned souls hovering in the material creation to be reclaimed to go
back home, back to Godhead, and thus He helps them by preparing the
transcendental literatures like the Vedas, by sending missionaries of saints
and sages and by deputing His representative, the spiritual master. Such
transcendental literatures, missionaries and representatives of the Lord
are spotlessly white because the contamination of the material qualities
cannot even touch them. They are always protected by the Lord when
they are threatened with annihilation. Such foolish threats are made by
the gross materialists. The brahmastra, which was thrown by Agvatthama
at the child Pariksit, was certainly supernaturally powerful, and nothing of
the material worldcould resist its force of penetration. But the all-powerful
Lord, who is present everywhere, within and without, could counteract it
by His all-powerful potency just to save a bona fide servant of the Lord
and descendant of another devotee, Maharaja Yudhisthira, who was always
obliged by the Lord by His causeless mercy.

TEXT 17

mererray freycra ght ats afseaia: |
ABM a tet AIT ATT I1209Il

tasman namna visnu-rata
iti loke bhavisyati

maha-bhaga na sandeho
maha-bhagavato mahan
