1. The queens’ love for Krsna

    When all the principal queens of Lord Krsna had finished their statements, Rohini, as the representative of the other sixteen thousand queens, began to narrate the incident of their becoming wives of Krsna.

    “My dear Queen, when Bhaumasura was conquering all the world, he collected wherever possible all the beautiful daughters of the kings and kept us arrested within his palace. When news of our imprisonment reached Lord Krsna, He fought with Bhaumasura and released us. Lord Krsna killed Bhaumasura and all his soldiers, and although He had no need to accept even one wife, He nevertheless, by our request, married all sixteen thousand of us. My dear Queen, our only qualification was that we were always thinking of the lotus feet of Lord Krsna, which is the way to release oneself from the bondage of repeated birth and death. My dear Queen Draupadi, please take it from us that we are not after any opulence such as a kingdom, an empire or a position of heavenly enjoyment. We do not want to enjoy such material opulences, nor do we desire to achieve the yogic perfections, nor the exalted post of Lord Brahma. Nor do we want any of the different kinds of liberation — sarupya, salokya, sarsti, samipya or sayujya. We are not at all attracted by any of these opulences. Our only ambition is to bear on our heads life after life the dust particles attached to the lotus feet of Lord Krsna. The goddess of fortune also desires to keep that dust on her breasts, along with fragrant saffron. We simply desire this dust, which accumulates underneath the lotus feet of Krsna as He travels on the land of Vrndavana as a cowherd boy. The gopis especially, and also the cowherd men and the aborigine tribeswomen, always desire to become the grass and straw on the streets of Vrndavana, to be trampled on by the lotus feet of Krsna. My dear Queen, we wish to remain as such life after life, without any other desire.”

    Thus ends the Bhaktivedanta purport of the Eighty-third Chapter of Krsna, “Draupadi Meets the Queens of Krsna.”