SB 1.13.22

SB 1.13.22

Devanagari

अन्ध: पुरैव वधिरो मन्दप्रज्ञाश्च साम्प्रतम् । विशीर्णदन्तो मन्दाग्नि: सराग: कफमुद्वहन् ॥ २२ ॥

Verse text

andhaḥ puraiva vadhiro manda-prajṣāś ca sāmprataṁ viśīrṇa-danto mandāgniḥ sarāgaḥ kapham udvahan

Synonyms

andhaḥ blind ; purā from the beginning ; eva certainly ; vadhiraḥ hard of hearing ; manda prajṣāḥ — memory shortened ; ca and ; sāmpratam recently ; viśīrṇa loosened ; dantaḥ teeth ; manda agniḥ — liver action decreased ; sa rāgaḥ — with sound ; kapham coughing much mucus ; udvahan coming out .

Translation

You have been blind from your very birth, and recently you have become hard of hearing. Your memory is shortened, and your intelligence is disturbed. Your teeth are loose, your liver is defective, and you are coughing up mucus.

Translation (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)

You were blind from birth. You are now deaf, and feeble witted. Your teeth are broken, your digestion is weak, and your body is full of mucus. Still you are attached.

Purport

The symptoms of old age, which had already developed in Dhṛtarāṣṭra, were all one after another pointed out to him as warning that death was nearing very quickly, and still he was foolishly carefree about his future. The signs pointed out by Vidura in the body of Dhṛtarāṣṭra were signs of apakṣaya, or dwindling of the material body before the last stroke of death. The body is born, it develops, stays, creates other bodies, dwindles and then vanishes. But foolish men want to make a permanent settlement of the perishable body and think that their estate, children, society, country, etc., will give them protection. With such foolish ideas, they become overtaken by such temporary engagements and forget altogether that they must give up this temporary body and take a new one, again to arrange for another term of society, friendship and love, again to perish ultimately. They forget their permanent identity and become foolishly active for impermanent occupations, forgetting altogether their prime duty. Saints and sages like Vidura approach such foolish men to awaken them to the real situation, but they take such sādhus and saints as parasites of society, and almost all of them refuse to hear the words of such sādhus and saints, although they welcome show-bottle sādhus and so-called saints who can satisfy their senses. Vidura was not a sādhu to satisfy the ill-gotten sentiment of Dhṛtarāṣṭra. He was correctly pointing out the real situation of life, and how one can save oneself from such catastrophies.