Devanagari
प्रीतोऽस्म्यनुगृहीतोऽस्मि तव भागवतस्य वै ।
दर्शनस्पर्शनालापैरातिथ्येनात्ममेधसा ॥ २० ॥
Verse text
prīto ’smy anugṛhīto ’smi
tava bhāgavatasya vai
darśana-sparśanālāpair
ātithyenātma-medhasā
Synonyms
prītaḥ
—
very much satisfied
;
asmi
—
I am
;
anugṛhītaḥ
—
very much favored
;
asmi
—
I am
;
tava
—
your
;
bhāgavatasya
—
because of your being a pure devotee
;
vai
—
indeed
;
darśana
—
by seeing you
;
sparśana
—
and touching your feet
;
ālāpaiḥ
—
by talking with you
;
ātithyena
—
by your hospitality
;
ātma
—
medhasā — by my own intelligence .
Translation
Durvāsā Muni said: I am very pleased with you, my dear King. At first I thought of you as an ordinary human being and accepted your hospitality, but later I could understand, by my own intelligence, that you are the most exalted devotee of the Lord. Therefore, simply by seeing you, touching your feet and talking with you, I have been pleased and have become obliged to you.
Translation (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)
I am very pleased, being favored by my intelligence, by your hospitality, and by seeing and touching you, and by speaking with you, a great devotee of the Lord.
I have been favored by seeing you, and thus I am pleased. Asmi is in the present tense. This indicates the previously I was not favored by seeing you, and not pleased, since I became blind with anger and created a demon to burn you, though you were sinless. If one happens to see a devotee, caused by actions of the devotee, and that gives rise to devotion to the Lord, then those events will give mercy to the brāhmaṇas having austerity and knowledge. There is no other way. I am the example of that. If I did not have intelligence to accept the hospitable words of Ambarīṣa, how could I become saved? The pain inflicted by the cakra was my great benefactor, delivering me from saṁsāra, and showing the path of bhakti.
Purport
It is said,
vaiṣṇavera kriyā mudrā vijṣeha nā bujhaya:
even a very intelligent man cannot understand the activities of a pure Vaiṣṇava. Therefore, although Durvāsā Muni was a great mystic
yogī,
he first mistook Mahārāja Ambarīṣa for an ordinary human being and wanted to punish him. Such is the mistaken observation of a Vaiṣṇava. When Durvāsā Muni was persecuted by the Sudarśana
cakra,
however, his intelligence developed. Therefore the word
ātma-medhasā
is used to indicate that by his personal experience he would understand how great a Vaiṣṇava the King was. When Durvāsā Muni was chased by the Sudarśana
cakra,
he wanted to take shelter of Lord Brahmā and Lord Śiva, and he was even able to go to the spiritual world, meet the Personality of Godhead and talk with Him face to face, yet he was unable to be rescued from the attack of the Sudarśana
cakra.
Thus he could understand the influence of a Vaiṣṇava by personal experience. Durvāsā Muni was certainly a great
yogī
and a very learned
brāhmaṇa,
but despite his being a real
yogī
he was unable to understand the influence of a Vaiṣṇava. Therefore it is said,
vaiṣṇavera kriyā mudrā vijṣeha nā bujhaya:
even the most learned person cannot understand the value of a Vaiṣṇava. There is always a possibility for so-called
jṣānīs
and
yogīs
to be mistaken when studying the character of a Vaiṣṇava. A Vaiṣṇava can be understood by how much he is favored by the Supreme Personality of Godhead in terms of his inconceivable activities.