Bhaktivedanta VedaBase: Srimad Bhagavatam 1.18.21

athapi yat-pada-nakhavasrishtam

jagad virincopahritarhanambhah

sesam punaty anyatamo mukundat

ko nama loke bhagavat-padarthah

SYNONYMS

atha -- therefore; api -- certainly; yat -- whose; pada-nakha -- nails of the feet; avasrishtam -- emanating; jagat -- the whole universe; virinca -- Brahmaji; upahrita -- collected; arhana -- worship; ambhah -- water; sa -- along with; isam -- Lord Siva; punati -- purifies; anyatamah -- who else; mukundat -- besides the Personality of Godhead Sri Krishna; kah -- who; nama -- name; loke -- within the world; bhagavat -- Supreme Lord; pada -- position; arthah -- worth.

TRANSLATION

Who can be worthy of the name of the Supreme Lord but the Personality of Godhead Sri Krishna? Brahmaji collected the water emanating from the nails of His feet in order to award it to Lord Siva as a worshipful welcome. This very water [the Ganges] is purifying the whole universe, including Lord Siva.

PURPORT

The conception of many gods in the Vedic literatures by the ignorant is completely wrong. The Lord is one without a second, but He expands Himself in many ways, and this is confirmed in the Vedas. Such expansions of the Lord are limitless, but some of them are the living entities. The living entities are not as powerful as the Lord's plenary expansions, and therefore there are two different types of expansions. Lord Brahma is generally one of the living entities, and Lord Siva is the via medium between the Lord and the living entities. In other words, even demigods like Lord Brahma and Lord Siva, who are the chief amongst all demigods, are never equal to or greater than Lord Vishnu, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The goddess of fortune, Lakshmi, and all-powerful demigods like Brahma and Siva are engaged in the worship of Vishnu or Lord Krishna; therefore who can be more powerful than Mukunda (Lord Krishna) to be factually called the Supreme Personality of Godhead? The goddess of fortune, Lakshmiji, Lord Brahma and Lord Siva are not independently powerful; they are powerful as expansions of the Supreme Lord, and all of them are engaged in the transcendental loving service of the Lord, and so also are the living entities. There are four sects of worshipful devotees of the Lord, and the chief amongst them are the Brahma-sampradaya, Rudra-sampradaya and Sri-sampradaya, descending directly from Lord Brahma, Lord Siva and the goddess of fortune, Lakshmi, respectively. Besides the above-mentioned three sampradayas, there is the Kumara-sampradaya, descending from Sanat-kumara. All of the four original sampradayas are still scrupulously engaged in the transcendental service of the Lord up to date, and they all declare that Lord Krishna, Mukunda, is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and no other personality is equal to Him or greater than Him.

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His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Founder Acarya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness