188 Srimad-Bhagavatam [Canto 8, Ch. 22

necessary strength to be tolerant and continue to remain a glorious
devotee.

TEXT 31
wy Fy onfta: ed geamaeTta |
Taian alae AcPTT 132M

esa me prdpitah sthanarh
dusprépam amarair api

sdvarner antarasyaéyam
bhavitendro mad-asrayah

esah—Bali Maharaja; me—by Me; prdpitah—has achieved;
sthanam—a place; duspraépam—extremely difficult to obtain; amaraih
api—even by the demigods; sdvarneh antarasya—during the period of
the Manu known as Savarni; ayam—this Bali Maharaja; bhavita—will
become; indrah—the lord of the heavenly planet; mat-dsrayah—com-
pletely under My protection.

TRANSLATION

The Lord continued: Because of his great tolerance, I have given
him a place not obtainable even by the demigods. He will become
King of the heavenly planets during the period of the Manu
known as Savarni.

PURPORT

This is the mercy of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Even if the
Lord takes away a devotee’s material opulences, the Lord immediately
offers him a position of which the demigods cannot even dream. There
are many examples of this in the history of devotional service. One of
them is the opulence of Sudama Vipra. Sudama Vipra suffered severe
material scarcity, but he was not disturbed and did not deviate from de-
votional service. Thus he was ultimately given an exalted position by the
mercy of Lord Krsna. Here the word mad-dsrayah is very significant.
Because the Lord wanted to give Bali Maharaja the exalted position of
Indra, the demigods might naturally have been envious of him and
might have fought to disturb his position. But the Supreme Personality
