24 Srimad-Bhagavatam [Canto 3, Ch. 1

the dvija-devas and the devas always establish temples of Lord Visnu in His
various forms, such as Govinda, Madhusidana, Nrsimha, Madhava, Kesava,
Narayana, Padmanabha, Parthasarathi and many others. The Lord expands
Himself in innumerable forms, but all of them are nondifferent from one
another. Lord Visnu has four hands, and each hand holds a particular
item—either a conchshell, wheel, club or lotus flower. Of these four
emblems, the cakra, or wheel, is the chief. Lord Krsna, being the original
Visnu form, has only one emblem, namely the wheel, and therefore He is
sometimes called the Cakri. The Lord’s cakra is the symbol of the power
by which the Lord controls the whole manifestation. The tops of Visnu
temples are marked with the symbol of the wheel so that people may have
the chance to see the symbol from a very long distance and at once
remember Lord Krsna. The purpose of building very high temples is to
give people a chance to see them from a distant place. This system is
carried on in India whenever a new temple is constructed, and it appears
that it is coming down from a time before recorded history. The foolish
propaganda by atheists that temples were only constructed in later days is
refuted here because Vidura visited these temples at least 5,000 years ago,
and the temples of Visnu were in existence long, long before Vidura visited
them. The great sages and demigods never established statues of men or
demigods, but they established temples of Visnu for the benefit of
common men, to raise them to the platform of God consciousness.

TEXT 24

qaeatasy = - G'S
TARA TENA |
aA aTaAGAa Ia

aed oad = zat ieell

tatas tv ativrajya surastram rddham
sauvira-matsyan kurujangalams ca

kalena tavad yamunam upetya
tatroddhavam bhagavatam dadarsa

tatah—from there; tu—but; ativrajya—by passing over; surastram—the
kingdom of Surat;rddham—very wealthy; sauvira—the kingdom of Sauvira;
matsyan—the kingdom of Matsya; kurujangalan—the kingdom of western
India up to the Delhi province; ca—also; kalena—in course of time;
tdvat—as soon as; yamunam—bank of the River Yamun4; upetya—reaching;
