Å›rÄ«-Å›uka uvÄca
itÄ«dṛśena bhÄvena
kṛṣṇe yogeśvareśvare
kriyamÄṇena mÄdhavyo
lebhire paramÄá¹ gatim
Å›rÄ«-Å›ukaḥ uvÄca - Åšukadeva GosvÄmÄ« said; iti - speaking thus; Ä«dṛśena - with such; bhÄvena - ecstatic love; kṛṣṇe - for Kṛṣṇa; yoga-īśvara - of masters of yoga; īśvare - the master; kriyamÄṇena - behaving; mÄdhavyaḥ - the wives of Lord MÄdhava; lebhire - they attained; paramÄm - ultimate; gatim - the goal.
According to Ä€cÄrya ÅšrÄ« JÄ«va GosvÄmÄ«, here Åšukadeva GosvÄmÄ« uses the present tense of the word kriyamÄṇena to indicate that the Lord’s queens attained His eternal abode immediately, without delay. By this insight the ÄcÄrya helps refute the false notion that after Lord Kṛṣṇa’s departure from this world, some primitive cowherds kidnapped His queens while they were under the protection of Arjuna. In fact, as the self-realized Vaiṣṇava commentators elsewhere explain, Lord Kṛṣṇa Himself appeared in the guise of the thieves who abducted the queens. For further information on this subject, see ÅšrÄ«la PrabhupÄda’s purport to ÅšrÄ«mad-BhÄgavatam 1.15.20.
ÅšrÄ«la ViÅ›vanÄtha CakravartÄ« remarks that the supreme goal attained by these exalted women was not the liberation of the impersonal yogÄ«s but the perfect state of prema-bhakti, pure loving devotion. Indeed, since they were already imbued with divine love of God from the very beginning, they possessed transcendental bodies of eternity, knowledge and bliss, in which they were fully able to relish the pleasure of reciprocating with the Supreme Lord in his most intimate, sweet pastimes. Specifically, in the opinion of ÅšrÄ«la ViÅ›vanÄtha CakravartÄ«, their love of God matured into the ecstasy of madness in pure love (bhÄvonmada), just as the gopÄ«s’ love did when Kṛṣṇa disappeared from their midst during the rÄsa dance. At that time the gopÄ«s experienced the full development of ecstatic madness, which they expressed in their inquiries from the various creatures of the forest and in such words as kṛṣṇo ’haá¹ paÅ›yata gatim: “I am Kṛṣṇa! Just see how gracefully I move!†(BhÄg. 10.30.19) Similarly, the vilÄsa, or flourishing transformation, of the ecstatic love of Lord DvÄrakÄdhīśa’s principal queens has produced the prema-vaicitrya symptoms they have exhibited here.