Goptṛtve Varaṇa — Acceptance of the Lord as Sole Maintainer

This section takes up goptrtve varanam, the fourth of Rupa Gosvami's six limbs of surrender: consciously accepting Krishna as one's sole guardian and maintainer, rather than treating one's own effort as ultimately responsible for one's welfare. Its four songs move from a basic question, by what strength does a person even continue, toward the concrete responsibilities of ordinary householder life — spouse, children, one's own body, extended family — reframing their maintenance as Krishna's work rather than one's own. Bhaktivinoda Thakura, who raised a large family while serving for years as a government magistrate, wrote this section from lived experience of exactly that responsibility rather than as an outside observer of household duty. The section closes by addressing Krishna as both sarvesvaresvara, the Lord of all lords, and vrajendra-kumar, the son of Nanda Maharaja of Vraja, holding His supreme majesty and His intimate, local identity in the same breath — among the more widely sung songs in this chapter, and one that lets the section on guardianship end on that same combination of grandeur and closeness rather than resolving toward one or the other alone.