Churning the Nectar from Srimad Bhagavatam - 81

[Guest guest]

Could the learned assembly shed light on the following passage? I never

quite understood it thoroughly, although I've read it many times. I do know

mathemathics, but why the particular number of 81 appears there, that is,

why the number nine is multiplied twice with three? (That is, not once, not

thrice, like that.)

 

 

"Devotional service in the modes of ignorance, passion and goodness can be

divided into eighty-one categories. There are different devotional

activities, such as hearing, chanting, remembering, worshiping, offering

prayer, rendering service and surrendering everything, and each of them can

be divided into three qualitative categories. There is hearing in the mode

of passion, in the mode of ignorance and in the mode of goodness. Similarly,

there is chanting in the mode of ignorance, passion and goodness, etc. Three

multiplied by nine equals twenty-seven, and when again multiplied by three

it becomes eighty-one."

 

(SB 3.29.10)