The Bhāgavata Purāṇa: Book VIII

0.      All forms of gross matter are ultimately made of the five mahābhūtas—the elements of earth, water, fire, air, and ether. At the time of universal dissolution, forms dissolve into their atomic constituents (and then into subtler and subtler energies, until everything dissolves back into the prakṛtic matrix). See Sāṅkhya chart in appendix 2.

0.      Anything made of prakṛti has some sort of identifiable form (rūpa) and, therefore, is nameable (nāma), albeit both of these are temporal and in this sense ephemeral. Īśvara, of course, is transcendent and therefore beyond nāma-rūpa.

0.      It is standard in eulogies of this sort to slip between “He” and “You” pronominal forms. The sense is: “He who is known as the Supreme Being (etc., etc.) is none other than You.”

0.      Kṣetra-jña (see, for example, Gītā XIII.3 and throughout).

0.      As the ātman can be reflected in the pure mirror of the mind, so can Īśvara in His creation.

0.      These portions, the karma kāṇḍa, deal with satisfying material desires (see “Bhakti and Dharma”).

0.      This “inner Seer” is taken by the commentators and Bhāgavata philosophy to be one of the manifestations of Viṣṇu who resides in every being as the Antaryāmī (Paramātman), the inner controller.

0.      The Vedic goals of conventional life (see earlier citation).

0.      This is a reference to one of the five forms of liberation outlined in the Bhāgavata (see “The Liberated Bhakta: Different Types of Mokṣa in the Bhāgavata”).

0.    For kalā (or aṁśa), see earlier citation.

0.    The sense here is something akin to verses in the Gītā (see VII.21 and X.4–5, 10), where Kṛṣṇa states that it is He who provides the appropriate intelligence to all beings that accords with their desires (and appropriate karma). For intelligence differentiated by the guṇas, see Gītā (XVIII.29–32).

0.    Gajendra did not address his prayers to a specific Iśvara such as Śiva or Viṣṇu.

0.    Śrīdhara refers to itihāsa (probably the Mahābhārata) for the source of this story: Once, the sage Devala was frolicking in a lake with some damsels, when the celestial Hūhū entered the lake, grabbed him by the leg, and pulled him. Devala became enraged and cursed him to become an alligator. Relenting somewhat later, he advised him to grasp the leg of the elephant after he had taken his alligator birth, so that he would be released by Hari (curses often bear some sort of similarity to the offense that provokes them; they are rarely retracted but can be modified).

0.    Sārūpya liberation. See “The Liberated Bhakta” for the five types of liberated states in Bhāgavata theology.

0.    We see here a good example of the layerings of stories: present situations are the effects of causes in previous lives, a literary and pedagogical trait so typical of epic and Purāṇic narrative.

0.    Compare with the Tale of King Bharata, when the latter was in the body of a deer.

0.    This is a reference to Viṣṇu when reclining on the ocean of milk, from whose navel a lotus grows (see the Tale and Teachings of Lord Brahmā).