go-gopÄ«nÄá¹ mÄtá¹›tÄsminn
ÄsÄ«t snehardhikÄá¹ vinÄ
purovad Äsv api hares
tokatÄ mÄyayÄ vinÄ
go-gopÄ«nÄm - for both the cows and the gopÄ«s, the elderly cowherd women; mÄtá¹›tÄ - motherly affection; asmin - unto Kṛṣṇa; ÄsÄ«t - there ordinarily was; sneha - of affection; á¹›dhikÄm - any increase; vinÄ - without; puraḥ-vat - like before; Äsu - there was among the cows and gopÄ«s; api - although; hareḥ - of Kṛṣṇa; tokatÄ - Kṛṣṇa is my son; mÄyayÄ vinÄ - without mÄyÄ.
Previously, from the very beginning, the gopīs had motherly affection for Kṛṣṇa. Indeed, their affection for Kṛṣṇa exceeded even their affection for their own sons. In displaying their affection, they had thus distinguished between Kṛṣṇa and their sons, but now that distinction disappeared.
The distinction between one’s own son and another’s son is not unnatural. Many elderly women have motherly affection for the sons of others. They observe distinctions, however, between those other sons and their own. But now the elderly gopÄ«s could not distinguish between their own sons and Kṛṣṇa, for since their own sons had been taken by BrahmÄ, Kṛṣṇa had expanded as their sons. Therefore, their extra affection for their sons, who were now Kṛṣṇa Himself, was due to bewilderment resembling that of BrahmÄ. Previously, the mothers of ÅšrÄ«dÄmÄ, SudÄmÄ, Subala and Kṛṣṇa’s other friends did not have the same affection for one another’s sons, but now the gopÄ«s treated all the boys as their own. Åšukadeva GosvÄmÄ«, therefore, wanted to explain this increment of affection in terms of Kṛṣṇa’s bewilderment of BrahmÄ, the gopÄ«s, the cows and everyone else.
