SB 5.11.9 · Srimad-Bhagavatam

Devanagari

एकादशासन्मनसो हि वृत्तय आकूतय: पञ्च धियोऽभिमान: । मात्राणि कर्माणि पुरं च तासां वदन्ति हैकादश वीर भूमी: ॥ ९ ॥

Verse text

ekādaśāsan manaso hi vṛttaya ākūtayaḥ paṣca dhiyo ’bhimānaḥ mātrāṇi karmāṇi puraṁ ca tāsāṁ vadanti haikādaśa vīra bhūmīḥ

Synonyms

ekādaśa — eleven ; āsan — there are ; manasaḥ — of the mind ; hi — certainly ; vṛttayaḥ — activities ; ākūtayaḥ — senses of action ; paṣca — five ; dhiyaḥ — senses for gathering knowledge ; abhimānaḥ — the false ego ; mātrāṇi — different sense objects ; karmāṇi — different material activities ; puram ca — and the body, society, nation, family or place of nativity ; tāsām — of those functions ; vadanti — they say ; ha — oh ; ekādaśa — eleven ; vīra — O hero ; bhūmīḥ — fields of activity .

Translation

There are five working senses and five knowledge-acquiring senses. There is also the false ego. In this way, there are eleven items for the mind’s functions. O hero, the objects of the senses [such as sound and touch], the organic activities [such as evacuation] and the different types of bodies, society, friendship and personality are considered by learned scholars the fields of activity for the functions of the mind.

Translation (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)

The eleven functions of the mind are the five knowledge senses, the five action senses and the ahaṅkāra. O King! They say that there are eleven objects for these senses: the five tan-mātras, the actions of the five action senses and the body. This verse shows the conditions or vṛttis of the mind. There are eleven vṛttis: five actions senses (ākūtayaḥ), five knowledge senses (dhiyaḥ) and ahaṅkāra (abhimānaḥ). For these eleven there are eleven objects, of hero of knowledge (vīra)! The tan-mātras are the sense objects of the five knowledge senses. Actions such as elimination are the sense objects of the five action senses. The body (puram), house etc. are the objects of the ahaṅkāra.

Purport

The mind is the controller of the five knowledge-acquiring senses and the five working senses. Each sense has its particular field of activity. In all cases, the mind is the controller or owner. By the false ego one thinks oneself the body and thinks in terms of “my body, my house, my family, my society, my nation” and so on. These false identifications are due to the expansions of the false ego. Thus one thinks that he is this or that. Thus the living entity becomes entangled in material existence.