Devanagari
तस्यापि तव देहोऽयं कृपणस्य जिजीविषो: ।
परैत्यनिच्छतो जीर्णो जरया वाससी इव ॥ २५ ॥
Verse text
tasyāpi tava deho ’yaṁ
kṛpaṇasya jijīviṣoḥ
paraity anicchato jīrṇo
jarayā vāsasī iva
Synonyms
tasya
—
of this
;
api
—
in spite of
;
tava
—
your
;
dehaḥ
—
body
;
ayam
—
this
;
kṛpaṇasya
—
of one who is miserly
;
jijīviṣoḥ
—
of you who desire life
;
paraiti
—
will dwindle
;
anicchataḥ
—
even unwilling
;
jīrṇaḥ
—
deteriorated
;
jarayā
—
old
;
vāsasī
—
garments
;
iva
—
like .
Translation
Despite your unwillingness to die and your desire to live even at the cost of honor and prestige, your miserly body will certainly dwindle and deteriorate like an old garment.
Translation (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)
Though wanting to live and not give the body up, your body, worn out with old age, is dying, beyond your will, like two pieces of cloth.
Purport
The words
kṛpaṇasya jijīviṣoḥ
are significant. There are two classes of men. One is called the
kṛpaṇa,
and the other is called the
brāhmaṇa.
The
kṛpaṇa,
or the miserly man, has no estimation of his material body, but the
brāhmaṇa
has a true estimation of himself and the material body. The
kṛpaṇa,
having a wrong estimation of his material body, wants to enjoy sense gratification with his utmost strength, and even in old age he wants to become a young man by medical treatment or otherwise. Dhṛtarāṣṭra is addressed herein as a
kṛpaṇa
because without any estimation of his material body he wants to live at any cost. Vidura is trying to open his eyes to see that he cannot live more than his term and that he must prepare for death. Since death is inevitable, why should he accept such a humiliating position for living? It is better to take the right path, even at the risk of death. Human life is meant for finishing all kinds of miseries of material existence, and life should be so regulated that one can achieve the desired goal. Dhṛtarāṣṭra, due to his wrong conception of life, had already spoiled eighty percent of his achieved energy, so it behooved him to utilize the remaining days of his miserly life for the ultimate good. Such a life is called miserly because one cannot properly utilize the assets of the human form of life. Only by good luck does such a miserly man meet a self-realized soul like Vidura and by his instruction gets rid of the nescience of material existence.
Commentary (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)
Paraiti means “it is wasting away.” Two pieces of cloth indicate the upper and lower cloth. This indicates that both the gross and subtle bodies have become worn out. Blindness and deafness indicate decay of the subtle body (since the senses are subtle) and wrinkles and grey hair are the decay of the gross body.