410 Srimad-Bhagavatam [Canto 5, Ch. 25
Sri-Suka uvaca

tasya mila-dese trimsad-yojana-sahasrantara aste ya vai kala
bhagavatas tamasi samakhyatananta iti satvatiya drastr-drsyayoh
sarikarsanam aham ity abhimana-laksanam yam sankarsanam ity
acaksate.

sri-Sukah uvaca—Sri Sukadeva Gosvami said; tasya—of the planet
Patala; miila-dese—in the region beneath the base; trimsat—thirty; yo-
jana—eight-mile units of measurement; sahasra-antare—at an interval
of one thousand; dste—remains; ya—which; vai—indeed; kala —an ex-
pansion of an expansion; bhagavatah—of the Supreme Personality of
Godhead; tamasi—related to darkness; samakhyata —called; anantah—
Ananta; iti—thus; sdtvatiyah—the devotees; drastr-drsyayoh—of mat-
ter and spirit; sankarsanam—the drawing together; aham—I; iti—
thus; abhimdna—by self-conception; laksanam—symptomized; yam—
whom; sankarsanam—Sankarsana; iti—thus; dcaksate—learned
scholars describe.

TRANSLATION

Sri Sukadeva Gosvami said to Maharaja Pariksit: My dear King,
approximately 240,000 miles beneath the planet Patala lives
another incarnation of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. He is
the expansion of Lord Visnu known as Lord Ananta or Lord
Sankarsana. He is always in the transcendental position, but
because He is worshiped by Lord Siva, the deity of tamo-guna or
darkness, He is sometimes called tamasi. Lord Ananta is the pre-
dominating Deity of the material mode of ignorance as well as the
false ego of all conditioned souls. When a conditioned living being
thinks, ‘I am the enjoyer, and this world is meant to be enjoyed by
me,” this conception of life is dictated to him by Sankarsana. Thus
the mundane conditioned soul thinks himself the Supreme Lord.

PURPORT

There is a class of men akin to Mayavadi philosophers who misin-
terpret the aham brahmésmi and so *ham Vedic mantras to mean, “I am
the Supreme Brahman” and “I am identical with the Lord.” This kind of
