Devanagari
न देयं नोपभोग्यं च लुब्धैर्यद् दु:खसञ्चितम् ।
भुङ्क्ते तदपि तच्चान्यो मधुहेवार्थविन्मधु ॥ १५ ॥
Verse text
na deyaṁ nopabhogyaṁ ca
lubdhair yad duḥkha-saṣcitam
bhuṅkte tad api tac cānyo
madhu-hevārthavin madhu
Synonyms
na
—
not
;
deyam
—
to be given in charity to others
;
na
—
not
;
upabhogyam
—
to be enjoyed personally
;
ca
—
also
;
lubdhaiḥ
—
by those who are greedy
;
yat
—
that which
;
duḥkha
—
with great struggle and pain
;
saṣcitam
—
is accumulated
;
bhuṅkte
—
he enjoys
;
tat
—
that
;
api
—
nevertheless
;
tat
—
that
;
ca
—
also
;
anyaḥ
—
someone else
;
madhu
—
hā — the one who steals the honey from the beehive
;
iva
—
like
;
artha
—
wealth
;
vit
—
one who knows how to recognize
;
madhu
—
the honey .
Translation
A greedy person accumulates a large quantity of money with great struggle and pain, but the person who has struggled so much to acquire this wealth is not always allowed to enjoy it himself or give it in charity to others. The greedy man is like the bee who struggles to produce a large quantity of honey, which is then stolen by a man who will enjoy it personally or sell it to others. No matter how carefully one hides his hard-earned wealth or tries to protect it, there are those who are expert in detecting the whereabouts of valuable things, and they will steal it.
Translation (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)
The wealth that greedy persons collect with great difficulty but neither enjoy nor spend is enjoyed by another person, just as the collector of honey, knowing how to attain his goal, takes honey collected by the bees.
Wealth accumulated without giving or enjoying is taken by others. The bee keeper teaches this. Another person who is stronger enjoys what is collected by another person, just as a person enjoys honey gathered by the bees. “How can another person understand one has wealth if one hides it?” Some persons understand wealth by certain symptoms in another person and know how to get it (arthavit). The honey collector knows where to get the honey in the hollow of the tree by following the bees.
Purport
One may argue that a wealthy man may conceal his money so expertly, by investing it in banks, stocks, properties, and so on, that there is no danger of theft. Only foolish people actually hide money by burying it in the ground or placing it under a mattress. But despite the fact that the majority of the world’s wealth has been accumulated in highly developed capitalistic countries, these countries are being severely challenged by many enemies who threaten at any moment to overrun the capitalists and steal their wealth. Similarly, we often find that the children of wealthy people are kidnapped, and then their parents must pay huge ransoms. Sometimes the parents themselves may also be kidnapped. Furthermore, there are so-called investment counselors who are expert in stealing the money of rich people; and in the modern age governments have also become expert in stealing money by taxation. Thus, the word
artha-vit
indicates one who by hook or by crook is expert in stealing the hard-earned wealth of other people. The bees work frantically to produce honey, but they will not enjoy their honey. As Lord Kṛṣṇa states,
mṛtyuḥ sarva-haraś cāham:
“I will come as death personified and steal everything.” (
Bg. 10.34
) Somehow or other one’s hard-earned material opulence will be stolen, and therefore, as mentioned in this verse, one should not work uselessly like the foolish honeybee.