Devanagari
निरोधोत्पत्त्यणुबृहन्नानात्वं तत्कृतान् गुणान् ।
अन्त:प्रविष्ट आधत्त एवं देहगुणान् पर: ॥ ९ ॥
Verse text
nirodhotpatty-aṇu-bṛhan-
nānātvaṁ tat-kṛtān guṇān
antaḥ praviṣṭa ādhatta
evaṁ deha-guṇān paraḥ
Synonyms
nirodha
—
dormancy
;
utpatti
—
manifestation
;
aṇu
—
tiny
;
bṛhat
—
large
;
nānātvam
—
the variety of characteristics
;
tat
—
kṛtān — produced by that
;
guṇān
—
qualities
;
antaḥ
—
within
;
praviṣṭaḥ
—
having entered
;
ādhatte
—
accepts
;
evam
—
thus
;
deha
—
of the material body
;
guṇān
—
qualities
;
paraḥ
—
the transcendental entity .
Translation
Just as fire may appear differently as dormant, manifest, weak, brilliant and so on, according to the condition of the fuel, similarly, the spirit soul enters a material body and accepts particular bodily characteristics.
Translation (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)
Just as fire, on entering wood, may appear to manifest, die, be weak, or be brilliant, the ātmā, entering a material body, accepts particular bodily characteristics.
Just as one mistakes the qualities of wood such as its tendency to be destroyed to be those of fire, though the qualities of wood do not actually reside in fire, one mistakes the qualities of the body such as its perishable nature to be those of the soul. Fire, entering wood, seems to assume qualities like destruction. The ātmā (paraḥ), entering the body, assumes qualities of the body such as destruction, out of man’s misconception. Just as fire is said to take various forms, such as birth, death, small or big, the ātmā is said to take birth and die. Though there is many different jīvas, one jīva such as a devaṭā attains variety by accepting various types of bodies one after the other or simultaneously (such as devatās or yogīs).
Purport
Although fire may appear and disappear within a particular object, the element fire always exists. Similarly, the eternal soul appears within a suitable body and then disappears from that body, but the soul always exists. Just as fire is different from its fuel, the soul is different from the body. A match makes a tiny fire, whereas the explosion of a huge gasoline tank will send flames shooting up into the sky. But still, fire is one. Similarly, one spirit soul may appear in the body of Brahmā and another in the body of an ant, but the spirit soul is qualitatively the same in every body. Because of ignorance we impose the bodily characteristics upon the soul, and thus we say that a particular person is American, Russian, Chinese, African or Mexican or that he is old or young. Although such designations certainly apply to the body, they do not apply to the spirit soul, which is described here as
paraḥ,
or a transcendental entity. As long as the bewildered spirit soul remains inimical to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the designations of the gross and subtle bodies will wrap themselves around him, keeping him in darkness. If one intellectually identifies oneself with various materialistic philosophies of life, he becomes covered by the subtle mind. Ultimately everything that exists is part and parcel of the Absolute Truth, Lord Kṛṣṇa. When the living entity realizes this, he becomes
nirupādhi,
or free from material designations. This is his constitutional position.