Text 15-17 Translation and Commentary:
Sri Jaimini Said: By hearing the instructions of Sukadeva Gosvami, Sriman Pariksit was relieved of all fear. All his ambitions satisfied, he was absorbed in pure love for Sri Krsna. Now, as the time came near for the king to ascend to the destination he desired, his mother, Virata's daughter, a surrendered devotee of Krsna, approached him in great distress while he was along. After Pariksit had consoled and pleased her by his greeting, she asked of him as follows, immersed in love for her son.
Commentary:
To satisfy King Janamejaya's sincere desire Jaimini recalls how Janamejaya's saintly father, Pariksit, some years before, had finished hearing Srimad-Bhagavatam from Sukadeva Gosvami and the hour had come for Pariksit to prepare for his fated death. Jaimini Rsi here divulges that Maharaja Pariksit's mother came to see her son just at that moment. Even though Pariksit was sitting several miles from his palace and very little time remained, his mother, Uttara, was impelled to see him just once more, knowing she would never see him again and eager not to lose the last opportunity to hear from him topics about Krsna.
After Sukadeva taught Srimad-Bhagavatam to Maharaja Pariksit, Pariksit no longer feared the monstrous snake-bird, nor vine consort Sri. He had effortlessly achieved the benefits of each of the essential human endeavors - religiosity, economic development, sense enjoyment and liberation. And beyond those benefits, he was immersed in a flood of prema-rasa at the lotus feet of Sri Krsna. His mother approached him while he was absorbed in that ecstasy.
A mother about to lose her son is naturally forlorn. But Uttara's sorrow was eclipsed by her eagerness to hear what her son had just heard from Sukadeva Gosvami about Lord Krsna's glories. Because she wanted to hear the confidential essence of Sukadeva's instructions, she approached her son as he sat alone. With a pacifying greeting and a brief philosophical reminder about the illusory nature of birth and death, maharaja Pariksit quickly dispelled whatever motherly anxiety she felt. Thus she was now joyful and fixed in affection for Sri Krsna and for her son. The great devotee of Krsna.
Text 18:
Blessed Uttara said: My dear son, please extract the essence of what Sukadeva has taught you and quickly reveal it to me, as if churning the nectar of immortality from the Ocean of Milk.
*Two key points drew my attention when I was reading over these verses, the first of which is the pure love and devotion of Mother Uttara. This pure and gentle woman had experienced great hardship in her short years. To bring a little bit of the history of the Mahabharata to mind You may recall that she is the daughter of King Virata and had the amazing good fortune of having Arjuna as her tutor while the Pandava brothers lived in hiding during their last year of exile. After the exile was over and Arjuna revealed himself to the King, Virata was overjoyed and offered his daughter's hand to him in marriage. Arjuna for his part gently refused for he said that he could not possibly marry the child who had been like a daughter to him for the previous year...For she had been like his daughter so she should be married to his son and become his child in truth, and so in due course young Uttara was married to Arjuna's son Abhimanyu.
During the great battle of Kurukshetra young Uttara who was newly married and pregnant with the Pandava heir, suffered the loss of almost all of her family. Her husband, father, and brothers all died in that great battle and now she is year’s later living through the loss of her only child. How can one person bare so much in their short years? So much sorrow. But Uttara although heart-broken is enlivened through her service to Krishna. She has lost everything but her devotion and love for her Lord and so she is eager to learn more about his glories. She is such a pure devotee...how can we even begin to share the affection she holds for Sri Krishna? To put aside the material loss of her son, she is eager to share in the transidental abode of prema-bhakti.
The second point which I find very interesting is introduced in the 18th verse were Mother Uttara is asking her son to please extract the essence of the Srimad Bhagavatam "as if churning the nectar of immortality from the Ocean of Milk". Her son is to die very soon and so she does not have the time to listen to complete instructions of Srila Sukadeva Gosvami and so in this way she begs to be given the cream of those teachings. That nectarian gift is the Brihad Bhagavatamrta, how fortunate we are that we have been given the chance to relish such teachings!
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