dhÄrayanty ati-ká¹›cchreṇa
prÄyaḥ prÄṇÄn kathañcana
pratyÄgamana-sandeÅ›air
ballavyo me mad-ÄtmikÄḥ

 dhÄrayanti - they hold on; ati-ká¹›cchreṇa - with great difficulty; prÄyaḥ - barely; prÄṇÄn - to their lives; kathañcana - somehow; prati-Ägamana - of return; sandeÅ›aiḥ - by the promises; ballavyaḥ - the cowherd women; me - My; mat-ÄtmikÄḥ - who are fully dedicated to Me.


Text

Simply because I have promised to return to them, My fully devoted cowherd girlfriends struggle to maintain their lives somehow or other.

Purport

According to ÅšrÄ«la ViÅ›vanÄtha CakravartÄ«, although the gopÄ«s of Vá¹›ndÄvana were apparently married, their husbands actually had no contact whatsoever with their supremely attractive qualities of form, taste, fragrance, sound, touch and so on. Rather, their husbands merely presumed, “These are our wives.†In other words, by Lord Kṛṣṇa’s spiritual potency, the gopÄ«s existed entirely for His pleasure, and Kṛṣṇa loved them in the mood of a paramour. In fact, the gopÄ«s were manifestations of Kṛṣṇa’s internal nature, His supreme pleasure potency, and on the spiritual platform they attracted the Lord by their pure love.

Nanda MahÄrÄja and mother YaÅ›odÄ, Lord Kṛṣṇa’s parents in Vá¹›ndÄvana, had also attained a most exalted state of love for Kṛṣṇa, and they too could barely maintain their lives in His absence. Thus Uddhava would also give special attention to them.