SB 11.22.51 · Srimad-Bhagavatam

Devanagari

प्रकृतेरेवमात्मानमविविच्याबुध: पुमान् । तत्त्वेन स्पर्शसम्मूढ: संसारं प्रतिपद्यते ॥ ५१ ॥

Verse text

prakṛter evam ātmānam avivicyābudhaḥ pumān tattvena sparśa-sammūḍhaḥ saṁsāraṁ pratipadyate

Synonyms

prakṛteḥ — from material nature ; evam — in this way ; ātmānam — the self ; avivicya — failing to distinguish ; abudhaḥ — the unintelligent ; pumān — person ; tattvena — because of thinking (material things) to be real ; sparśa — by material contact ; sammūḍhaḥ — completely bewildered ; saṁsāram — the cycle of material existence ; pratipadyate — attains .

Translation

An unintelligent man, failing to distinguish himself from material nature, thinks nature to be real. By contact with it he becomes completely bewildered and enters into the cycle of material existence.

Translation (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)

An unintelligent man, failing to distinguish himself in truth from the body made of prakṛti, by contact with it becomes absorbed in sense objects and enters into the cycle of material existence. The person lacking discrimination enters saṁsāra. Failing to distinguish himself from the covering of prakṛti, absorbed in sense objects, he enters saṁsāra.

Purport

A similar verse is found in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (1.7.5) : yayā sammohito jīva ātmānaṁ tri-guṇātmakam paro ’pi manute ’narthaṁ tat-kṛtaṁ cābhipadyate “Due to this external energy, the living entity, although transcendental to the three modes of material nature, thinks of himself as a material product and thus undergoes the reactions of material miseries.”