oṁ namo bhagavate narasiṁhāya namas
tejas-tejase āvir-āvirbhava vajra-nakha vajra-daṁṣṭra karmāśayān
randhaya randhaya tamo grasa grasa oṁ svāhā; abhayam abhayam ātmani
bhūyiṣṭhā oṁ kṣraum.
SYNONYMS
om—O Lord; namaḥ—my respectful obeisances; bhagavate—unto the Supreme Personality of Godhead; nara-siṁhāya—known as Lord Nṛsiṁha; namaḥ—obeisances; tejaḥ-tejase—the power of all power; āviḥ-āvirbhava—please be fully manifest; vajra-nakha—O You who possess nails like thunderbolts; vajra-daṁṣṭra—O You who possess teeth like thunderbolts; karma-āśayān—demoniac desires to be happy by material activities; randhaya randhaya—kindly vanquish; tamaḥ—ignorance in the material world; grasa—kindly drive away; grasa—kindly drive away; om—O my Lord; svāhā—respectful oblations; abhayam—fearlessness; abhayam—fearlessness; ātmani—in my mind; bhūyiṣṭhāḥ—may You appear; om—O Lord; kṣraum—the bīja, or seed, of mantras offering prayers to Lord Nṛsiṁha.
TRANSLATION
I offer my respectful obeisances unto Lord
Nṛsiṁhadeva, the source of all power. O my Lord who possesses nails and
teeth just like thunderbolts, kindly vanquish our demonlike desires for
fruitive activity in this material world. Please appear in our hearts
and drive away our ignorance so that by Your mercy we may become
fearless in the struggle for existence in this material world.
PURPORT
“Devotees always engaged in the service of the
toes of the Lord’s lotus feet can very easily become free from
hard-knotted desires for fruitive activities. Because this is very
difficult, the nondevotees—the jñānīs and yogīs—cannot
stop the waves of sense gratification, although they try to do so.
Therefore you are advised to engage in the devotional service of Kṛṣṇa, the son of Vasudeva.”
Every living being within this material world has a
strong desire to enjoy matter to his fullest satisfaction. For this
purpose, the conditioned soul must accept one body after another, and
thus his strongly fixed fruitive desires continue. One cannot stop the
repetition of birth and death without being completely desireless.
Therefore Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī describes pure bhakti (devotional service) as follows:
“One should render transcendental loving service to the Supreme Lord Kṛṣṇa
favorably and without desire for material profit or gain through
fruitive activities or philosophical speculation. That is called pure
devotional service.” Unless one is completely freed of all material
desires, which are caused by the dense darkness of ignorance, one cannot
fully engage in the devotional service of the Lord. Therefore we should
always offer our prayers to Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva, who killed Hiraṇyakaśipu,
the personification of material desire. Hiraṇya means “gold,” and kaśipu
means “a soft cushion or bed.” Materialistic persons always desire to
make the body comfortable, and for this they require huge amounts of
gold. Thus Hiraṇyakaśipu was the perfect representative of materialistic
life. He was therefore the cause of great disturbance to the topmost
devotee, Prahlāda Mahārāja,
until Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva killed him. Any devotee aspiring to be free of
material desires should offer his respectful prayers to Nṛsiṁhadeva as Prahlāda Mahārāja did in this verse.
