Devanagari
यन्नामाकृतिभिर्ग्राह्यं पञ्चवर्णमबाधितम् ।
व्यर्थेनाप्यर्थवादोऽयं द्वयं पण्डितमानिनाम् ॥ ३७ ॥
Verse text
yan nāmākṛtibhir grāhyaṁ
paṣca-varṇam abādhitam
vyarthenāpy artha-vādo ’yaṁ
dvayaṁ paṇḍita-māninām
Synonyms
yat
—
which
;
nāma
—
by names
;
ākṛtibhiḥ
—
and forms
;
grāhyam
—
perceivable
;
paṣca
—
varṇam — consisting of the five material elements
;
abādhitam
—
undeniable
;
vyarthena
—
in vain
;
api
—
indeed
;
artha
—
vādaḥ — the imaginative interpretation
;
ayam
—
this
;
dvayam
—
duality
;
paṇḍita
—
māninām — of so-called scholars .
Translation
The duality of the five material elements is perceived only in terms of names and forms. Those who say this duality is real are pseudoscholars vainly proposing fanciful theories without basis in fact.
Translation (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)
The duality of the five material elements is perceived only in terms of names and forms. Those who say this duality is real are pseudo scholars vainly proposing the non-existent.
The effect and cause are one just as threads and cloth are one. The difference of the effects is thus annulled. Those who consider the variety of effects to be existent, not annulled (abādhitam), are learned in name only. They are not learned. The existence of the five gross elements, perceived by the senses to have name and form, are perceived because of duality, which has not yet been annulled. Those who pose themselves to be learned accept these elements. The wise do not, since this is a claim of real objects without real objects. An object with beginning and end cannot be accepted as real. The Lord has already said:
pratyakṣeṇānumānena nigamenātma-saṁvidā
ādy-antavad asaj jṣātvā niḥsaṅgo vicared iha
By direct perception, logical deduction, scriptural testimony and personal realization, one should know that this world has a beginning and an end and so is merely temporary. Thus one should live in this world without attachment. SB 11.28.9
Purport
Material names and forms, subject as they are to creation and annihilation, have no permanent existence and so do not constitute essential, fundamental principles of reality. The material world consists of variegated transformations of the potency of God. Although God is real and His potency is real, the particular forms and names that temporarily or circumstantially appear have no ultimate reality. Gross ignorance occurs when the conditioned soul imagines himself to be material or a mixture of matter and spirit. Some philosophers argue that the eternal soul in contact with matter is permanently transformed and that the false ego represents a new and permanent reality of the soul. Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī replies that spirit is the living, superior energy of the Lord, whereas matter is the inferior, unconscious energy of the Lord, and that these two energies thus possess opposite qualities, as with light and darkness. The superior living entity and inferior matter therefore cannot possibly merge into a common existence, since they eternally possess opposite and incompatible characteristics. The hallucination of a mixture of matter and spirit is called illusion; it becomes specifically manifest as false ego, which identifies with a specific material body or mind created by illusion. Clearly those scientists or philosophers who are embedded in gross ignorance cannot be real scientists and philosophers. The simple criterion of spiritual self-awareness unfortunately eliminates a huge percentage of modern so-called scientists and philosophers, who bury their foolish noses in the Lord’s material energy, without any knowledge of or interest in the Lord Himself.