Text 27] Lord Vignu’s Appearance in the Sacrificial Arena 801
already liberated. They never come into this material world. Lord Visnu is
the master of this material world, and there is no question of His being
controlled by material nature. Consequently, Lord Visnu is addressed here
as piirusottama, the best of all living entities—namely visnu-tattvas and
jiva-tattvas. It is a great offense, therefore, to compare Lord Visnu and the
jiva-tattva or consider them on an equal level. The Mayavadi philosophers
equalize the jivas and the Supreme Lord and consider them to be one, but
that is the greatest offense to the lotus feet of Lord Visnu.

Here in the material world we have practical experience that a superior
person is worshiped by an inferior one. Similarly, purusottama, the great-
est, the Supreme Personality of Godhead Krsna or Lord Visnu, is always
worshiped by others. Prthu Maharaja therefore decided to engage in the
service of the lotus feet of Lord Visnu. Prthu Maharaja is considered to be
an incarnation of Lord Visnu, but he is called a saktyavega incarnation.
Another significant word in this verse is gundlayam, which refers to Visnu
as the reservoir of all transcendental qualities. The Mayavadi philosophers
take the Absolute Truth to be nirguna (without qualities), in accordance
with the impersonalistic view, but actually the Lord is the reservoir of all
good qualities. One of the most important qualities of the Lord is His
inclination to His devotees, called bhakta-vatsala. The devotees are always
very much inclined to render service to the lotus feet of the Lord, and the
Lord is also very much inclined to accept loving service from His devotees.
In that exchange of service there are so many transcendental transactions
which are called transcendental qualitative activities. Some of the transcen-
dental qualities of the Lord are that He is omniscient, omnipresent, all-
pervasive, all-powerful, the cause of all causes, the Absolute Truth, the
reservoir of all pleasures, the reservoir of all knowledge, the all-auspicious
and so on.

Prthu Maharaja desired to serve the Lord with the goddess of fortune,
but this desire does not mean that he was situated on the platform of
madhurya-rasa. The goddess of fortune is engaged in the service of the
Lord in the madhurya-rasa of conjugal love. Although her position is on
the chest of the Lord, the goddess of fortune, in her position as a devotee,
takes pleasure in serving the lotus feet of the Lord. Prthu Maharaja was
thinking only of the lotus feet of the Lord because he is on the platform
of dasya-rasa or servitorship of the Lord. From the next verse we learn
that Prthu Maharaja was thinking of the goddess of fortune as the universal
mother, jagan-mata. Consequently there was no question of his competing
with her on the platform of madhurya-rasa. Nonetheless he feared that she
might take offense at his engaging in the service of the Lord. This suggests
that in the absolute world there is sometimes competition between servitors
