SB 4.7.27 · Srimad-Bhagavatam

Devanagari

ऋत्विज ऊचु: तत्त्वं न ते वयमनञ्जन रुद्रशापात् कर्मण्यवग्रहधियो भगवन्विदाम: । धर्मोपलक्षणमिदं त्रिवृदध्वराख्यं ज्ञातं यदर्थमधिदैवमदो व्यवस्था: ॥ २७ ॥

Verse text

ṛtvija ūcuḥ tattvaṁ na te vayam anaṣjana rudra-śāpāt karmaṇy avagraha-dhiyo bhagavan vidāmaḥ dharmopalakṣaṇam idaṁ trivṛd adhvarākhyaṁ jṣātaṁ yad-artham adhidaivam ado vyavasthāḥ

Synonyms

ṛtvijaḥ — the priests ; ūcuḥ — began to say ; tattvam — truth ; na — not ; te — of Your Lordship ; vayam — all of us ; anaṣjana — without material contamination ; rudra — Lord Śiva ; śāpāt — by his curse ; karmaṇi — in fruitive activities ; avagraha — being too much attached ; dhiyaḥ — of such intelligence ; bhagavan — O Lord ; vidāmaḥ — know ; dharma — religion ; upalakṣaṇam — symbolized ; idam — this ; tri — vṛt — the three departments of knowledge of the Vedas ; adhvara — sacrifice ; ākhyam — of the name ; jṣātam — known to us ; yat — that ; artham — for the matter of ; adhidaivam — for worshiping the demigods ; adaḥ — this ; vyavasthāḥ — arrangement .

Translation

The priests addressed the Lord, saying: O Lord, transcendental to material contamination, by the curse offered by Lord Śiva’s men we have become attached to fruitive activities, and thus we are now fallen and therefore do not know anything about You. On the contrary, we are now involved in the injunctions of the three departments of the Vedic knowledge under the plea of executing rituals in the name of yajṣa. We know that You have made arrangements for distributing the respective shares of the demigods.

Translation (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)

The priests said: O uncontaminated Lord! Because of the curse of Nandīśvara, we have become absorbed in karma and do not know the truth about you. We know you in the form of sacrifice, called dharma, for attaining artha, dharma and kāma, in which the result is an arrangement for the devatās share. O Lord beyond the contamination of māyā (anaṣjna)! By the curse of Nandīśvara we are absorbed in karma, and do not know you. How can Dakṣa know you? They glance at Dakṣa. “What do you know?” We know your form as the sacrifice which yields artha, dharma and kāma (trivṛt), commonly known as dharma. The result of this sacrifice is that thre is an arrangement of shares for the devatās according to their qualification.

Purport

The Vedas are known as traiguṇya-viṣayā vedāḥ ( Bg. 2.45 ). Those who are serious students of the Vedas are very much attached to the ritualistic ceremonies mentioned in the Vedas, and therefore these veda-vādīs cannot understand that the ultimate goal of the Vedas is to understand Lord Kṛṣṇa, or Viṣṇu. Those who have transcended the qualitative Vedic attractions, however, can understand Kṛṣṇa, who is never contaminated by the material qualities. Therefore Lord Viṣṇu is addressed here as anaṣjana, “free from material contamination.” In Bhagavad-gītā (2.42) the crude Vedic scholars have been deprecated by Kṛṣṇa as follows: yām imāṁ puṣpitāṁ vācaṁ pravadanty avipaścitaḥ veda-vāda-ratāḥ pārtha nānyad astīti vādinaḥ “Men of small knowledge are very much attached to the flowery words of the Vedas, and they say that there is nothing more than this.”