Devanagari
प्राकारोपवनाट्टालपरिखैरक्षतोरणै: ।
स्वर्णरौप्यायसै: शृङ्गै: सङ्कुलां सर्वतो गृहै: ॥ १४ ॥
Verse text
prākāropavanāṭṭāla-
parikhair akṣa-toraṇaiḥ
svarṇa-raupyāyasaiḥ śṛṅgaiḥ
saṅkulāṁ sarvato gṛhaiḥ
Synonyms
prākāra
—
walls
;
upavana
—
parks
;
aṭṭāla
—
towers
;
parikhaiḥ
—
with trenches
;
akṣa
—
windows
;
toraṇaiḥ
—
with gates
;
svarṇa
—
gold
;
raupya
—
silver
;
ayasaiḥ
—
made of iron
;
śṛṅgaiḥ
—
with domes
;
saṅkulām
—
congested
;
sarvataḥ
—
everywhere
;
gṛhaiḥ
—
with houses .
Translation
That city was surrounded by walls and parks, and within it were towers, canals, windows and outlets. The houses there were decorated with domes made of gold, silver and iron.
Translation (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)
It had walls, groves, a head, moats, lattice windows, gates, and pinnacles of gold, silver and iron, and houses.
The walls are the skin. The groves are the sense objects. The tower is the mouth. The moat is the combination of guṇas. Parikhaiḥ (masculine form instead of feminine) is poetic license. The lattices are the hair pores. The gates are the eyes and other openings. Gold, silver and iron refer to pitta, kapha and vāta or the three natures of sattva, rajas and tamas. The houses are the cakras in the body.
Purport
The body is protected by walls of skin. The hairs on the body are compared to parks, and the highest parts of the body, like the nose and head, are compared to towers. The wrinkles and depressions on different parts of the body are compared to trenches or canals, the eyes are compared to windows, and the eyelids are compared to protective gates. The three types of metal — gold, silver and iron — represent the three modes of material nature. Gold represents goodness; silver, passion; and iron, ignorance. The body is also sometimes considered to be a bag containing three elements (
tri-dhātu
): mucus, bile and air (
kapha, pitta
and
vāyu
).
Yasyātma-buddhiḥ kuṇape tri-dhātuke.
According to
Bhāgavatam
(10.84.13)
, one who considers this bag of mucus, bile and air to be the self is considered no better than a cow or an ass.