yato ’bhavad visvam idam vicitram

 samsthasyate yatra ca vavatisthate

prajapatinam patir esa mahyam

 param pramanam bhagavan anantah

 

Translation by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada: 

 

The highest authority for me is the unlimited Supreme Personality of Godhead, from whom this wonderful creation emanates and in whom its sustenance and dissolution rest. He is the origin of all Prajapatis, the personalities meant to produce living entities in this world.

 

Purport by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada: 

 

Kardama Muni was ordered by his father, Prajapati, to produce children. In the beginning of creation the Prajapatis were meant to produce the large population which was to reside in the planets of the gigantic universe. But Kardama Muni said that although his father was Prajapati, who desired him to produce children, actually his origin was the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Visnu, because Visnu is the origin of everything; He is the actual creator of this universe, He is the actual maintainer, and when everything is annihilated, it rests in Him only. That is the conclusion of Srimad-Bhagavatam. For creation, maintenance and annihilation there are the three deities Brahma, Visnu and Mahesvara (Siva), but Brahma and Mahesvara are qualitative expansions of Visnu. Visnu is the central figure. Therefore He takes charge of maintenance. No one can maintain the whole creation but Him. There are innumerable entities, and they have innumerable demands; no one but Visnu can fulfill the innumerable demands of all the innumerable living entities. Brahma is ordered to create, and Siva is ordered to annihilate. The middle function, maintenance, is taken charge of by Visnu. Kardama Muni knew very well, by his power in progressive spiritual life, that Visnu, the Personality of Godhead, was his worshipable Deity. Whatever Visnu desired was his duty, and nothing else. He was not prepared to beget a number of children. He would beget only one child, who would help the mission of Visnu. As stated in Bhagavad-gita, whenever there is a discrepancy in the discharge of religious principles, the Lord descends to the surface of the earth to protect religious principles and to annihilate the miscreants.

 

Marrying and begetting a child is considered to liquidate one’s debts to the family in which one is born. There are many debts which are imposed upon a child just after his birth. There are debts to the family in which one is born, debts to the demigods, debts to the Pitas, debts to the rsis, etc. But if someone engages only in the service of the Supreme Lord, the Personality of Godhead, who is actually worshipable, then even without trying to liquidate other debts, one becomes free from all obligations. Kardama Muni preferred to devote his life as a servant of the Lord in paramahamsa knowledge and to beget a child only for that purpose, not to beget numberless children to fill up the vacancies in the universe.