SB 12.5.3 · Srimad-Bhagavatam

Devanagari

न भविष्यसि भूत्वा त्वं पुत्रपौत्रादिरूपवान् । बीजाङ्कुरवद् देहादेर्व्यतिरिक्तो यथानल: ॥ ३ ॥

Verse text

na bhaviṣyasi bhūtvā tvaṁ putra-pautrādi-rūpavān bījāṅkura-vad dehāder vyatirikto yathānalaḥ

Synonyms

na bhaviṣyasi — you will not come into being ; bhūtvā — becoming ; tvam — you ; putra — of children ; pautra — grandchildren ; ādi — and so on ; rūpa — vān — assuming the forms ; bīja — the seed ; aṅkura — and the sprout ; vat — like ; deha — ādeḥ — from the material body and its paraphernalia ; vyatiriktaḥ — distinct ; yathā — as ; analaḥ — the fire (from the wood) .

Translation

You will not take birth again in the form of your sons and grandsons, like a sprout taking birth from a seed and then generating a new seed. Rather, you are entirely distinct from the material body and its paraphernalia, in the same way that fire is distinct from its fuel.

Translation (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)

You will not take birth again in the form of your sons and grandsons, like a sprout taking birth from a seed and then generating a new seed. Rather, you are entirely distinct from the material body and its paraphernalia, in the same way that fire is distinct from its fuel. Though bodies are continually born, the ātmā is not born repeatedly. You will not be born as your sons and grandsons. Śruti says aṅgād aṅgāt sambhavasi hṛdayāt abhijāyase ātmā vai putranāmāsi saṁjīva śaradah śatam: you are born from the limbs, you are born from the heart; you are born as your son’s name-- live for a hundred years. Like a sprout from a seed, a body takes the form of a child. From the spout comes another seed, which produces a grandson. But you are not like this, since the ātmā is different from the material covering, just as a flame is different from the wood it burns. A body is born from another body, but the ātmā is not like this.

Purport

Sometimes one dreams of being reborn as the son of one’s son, in the hope of perpetually remaining in the same material family. As stated in the śruti-mantra, pitā putreṇa pitṛmān yoni-yonau: “A father has a father in his son, because he may take birth as his own grandson.” The purpose of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is spiritual liberation and not the foolish prolonging of the illusion of bodily identification. That is clearly stated in this verse.