TEXT 8:
paritranaya sadhunam
vinasaya ca dushkritam
dharma-samsthapanarthaya
sambhavami yuge yuge
TRANSLATION:
To deliver the pious and to annihilate the miscreants, as well as to reestablish the principles of religion, I Myself appear, millennium after millennium.
PURPORT:
According to Bhagavad-gita, a sadhu (holy man) is a man in Krishna consciousness. A person may appear to be irreligious, but if he has the qualifications of Krishna consciousness wholly and fully, he is to be understood to be a sadhu. And dushkritam applies to those who do not care for Krishna consciousness. Such miscreants, or dushkritam, are described as foolish and the lowest of mankind, even though they may be decorated with mundane education, whereas a person who is one hundred percent engaged in Krishna consciousness is accepted as a sadhu, even though such a person may be neither learned nor well cultured. As far as the atheistic are concerned, it is not necessary for the Supreme Lord to appear as He is to destroy them, as He did with the demons Ravana and Kamsa. The Lord has many agents who are quite competent to vanquish demons. But the Lord especially descends to appease His unalloyed devotees, who are always harassed by the demoniac. The demon harasses the devotee, even though the latter may happen to be his kin. Although Prahlada Maharaja was the son of Hiranyakasipu, he was nonetheless persecuted by his father; although Devaki, the mother of Krishna, was the sister of Kamsa, she and her husband Vasudeva were persecuted only because Krishna was to be born of them. So Lord Krishna appeared primarily to deliver Devaki, rather than kill Kamsa, but both were performed simultaneously. Therefore it is said here that to deliver the devotee and vanquish the demon miscreants, the Lord appears in different incarnations.
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Translation and commentary by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
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