yÄvad dhato 'smi hantÄsmÄ«-
ty ÄtmÄnaá¹ manyate 'sva-dá¹›k
tÄvat tad-abhimÄny ajño
bÄdhya-bÄdhakatÄm iyÄt
yÄvat - as long as; hataḥ asmi - I am now being killed (by others); hantÄ asmi - I am the killer (of others); iti - thus; ÄtmÄnam - own self; manyate - he considers; a-sva-dá¹›k - one who has not seen himself (because of the darkness of the bodily conception of life); tÄvat - for that long; tat-abhimÄnÄ« - regarding himself as the killed or the killer; ajñaḥ - a foolish person; bÄdhya-bÄdhakatÄm - the worldly transaction of being obliged to execute some responsibility; iyÄt - continues.
In the bodily conception of life, one remains in darkness, without self-realization, thinking, “I am being killed†or “I have killed my enemies.†As long as a foolish person thus considers the self to be the killer or the killed, he continues to be responsible for material obligations, and consequently he suffers the reactions of happiness and distress.
By the grace of the Lord, Kaá¹sa felt sincere regret for having unnecessarily persecuted such Vaiṣṇavas as DevakÄ« and Vasudeva, and thus he came to the transcendental stage of knowledge. “Because I am situated on the platform of knowledge,†Kaá¹sa said, “understanding that I am not at all the killer of your sons, I have no responsibility for their death. As long as I thought that I would be killed by your son, I was in ignorance, but now I am free from this ignorance, which was due to a bodily conception of life.†As stated in Bhagavad-gÄ«tÄ (18.17):
yasya nÄhaá¹…ká¹›to bhÄvo
buddhir yasya na lipyate
hatvÄpi sa imÄḻ lokÄn
na hanti na nibadhyate
“One who is not motivated by false ego, whose intelligence is not entangled, though he kills men in this world, is not the slayer. Nor is he bound by his actions.†According to this axiomatic truth, Kaá¹sa pleaded that he was not responsible for having killed the sons of DevakÄ« and Vasudeva. “Please try to excuse me for such false, external activities,†he said, “and be pacified with this same knowledge.â€
