Devanagari
क्वाहं दरिद्र: पापीयान् क्व कृष्ण: श्रीनिकेतन: ।
ब्रह्मबन्धुरिति स्माहं बाहुभ्यां परिरम्भित: ॥ १६ ॥
Verse text
kvāhaṁ daridraḥ pāpīyān
kva kṛṣṇaḥ śrī-niketanaḥ
brahma-bandhur iti smāhaṁ
bāhubhyāṁ parirambhitaḥ
Synonyms
kva
—
who am
;
aham
—
I
;
daridraḥ
—
poor
;
pāpīyān
—
sinful
;
kva
—
who is
;
kṛṣṇaḥ
—
Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead
;
śrī
—
niketanaḥ — the transcendental form of all opulence
;
brahma
—
bandhuḥ — the friend of a brāhmaṇa, not fit even to be called a brāhmaṇa
;
iti
—
thus
;
sma
—
certainly
;
aham
—
I
;
bāhubhyām
—
by the arms
;
parirambhitaḥ
—
embraced .
Translation
Who am I? A sinful, poor friend of a brāhmaṇa. And who is Kṛṣṇa? The Supreme Personality of Godhead, full in six opulences. Nonetheless, He has embraced me with His two arms.
Translation (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)
Who am I? A sinful, poor friend of a brāhmaṇa. And who is Kṛṣṇa? The Supreme Personality of Godhead, full in six opulences. Nonetheless, He has embraced me with His two arms.
KB 10.81.16
“How can there be any comparison between me, a poor, sinful brāhmaṇa, and the Supreme Lord Kṛṣṇa, who is the only shelter of the goddess of fortune? And yet, considering me a brāhmaṇa, with heartfelt pleasure He embraced me in His two transcendental arms.
Purport
This translation is from Śrīla Prabhupāda’s English rendering of
Caitanya-caritāmṛta
(
Madhya
7.143)
.
Sudāmā was so humble that he considered his poverty to be his own fault, a result of sin. Such a mentality is in accord with the saying,
dāridrya-doṣo guṇa-rāśi-nāśī:
“The discrepancy of being poor ruins heaps of good qualities.”
Purport (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)
Though (iti) I am a fallen brahmana, I was embraced by his arms.
Purport (Jiva Goswami)
He expands on the previous verse. Am I some special jīva? Is not Kṛṣṇa Svayam Bhagavān? Moreover I am poverty stricken, sinful with no good fortune. But he is the abode of Lakṣmī. By his nature he is full of all wealth. He is full of all śaktis. Just because this person was born in a brāhmaṇa family, he has embraced him with his two arms. That is amazing (sma). He embraced me because I am a brāhmaṇa not because I am a friend. By this he expresses his extreme lack of qualification. He praises the Lord for being affectionate to brāhmaṇas, rather than being affectionate to devotees.