Devanagari
मैत्रेय उवाच
निशम्य गदतामेवमृषीणां धनुषि ध्रुव: ।
सन्दधेऽस्त्रमुपस्पृश्य यन्नारायणनिर्मितम् ॥ १ ॥
Verse text
maitreya uvāca
niśamya gadatām evam
ṛṣīṇāṁ dhanuṣi dhruvaḥ
sandadhe ’stram upaspṛśya
yan nārāyaṇa-nirmitam
Synonyms
maitreyaḥ uvāca
—
the sage Maitreya continued to speak
;
niśamya
—
having heard
;
gadatām
—
the words
;
evam
—
thus
;
ṛṣīṇām
—
of the sages
;
dhanuṣi
—
upon his bow
;
dhruvaḥ
—
Dhruva Mahārāja
;
sandadhe
—
fixed
;
astram
—
an arrow
;
upaspṛśya
—
after touching water
;
yat
—
that which
;
nārāyaṇa
—
by Nārāyaṇa
;
nirmitam
—
was made .
Translation
Śrī Maitreya said: My dear Vidura, when Dhruva Mahārāja heard the encouraging words of the great sages, he performed the ācamana by touching water and then took up his arrow made by Lord Nārāyaṇa and fixed it upon his bow.
Translation (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)
Maitreya said: Here the words spoken by the sages, Dhruva, after performing ācamana, strung an arrow made by Nārāyaṇa on his bow.
In the Eleventh Chapter, Manu, seeing the destruction of the Yakṣas, stops Dhruva from killing them, after giving scriptural instructions.
The word vacaḥ should be supplied to make the phrase “the words spoken by the sages.”
Purport
Dhruva Mahārāja was given a specific arrow made by Lord Nārāyaṇa Himself, and he now fixed it upon his bow to finish the illusory atmosphere created by the Yakṣas. As it is stated in the
Bhagavad-gītā
(7.14)
,
mām eva ye prapadyante māyām etāṁ taranti te.
Without Nārāyaṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, no one is able to overcome the action of the illusory energy. Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu has also given us a nice weapon for this age, as stated in the
Bhāgavatam:
sāṅgopāṅgāstra
— in this age, the
nārāyaṇāstra,
or weapon to drive away
māyā,
is the chanting of the Hare Kṛṣṇa
mantra
in pursuance of the associates of Lord Caitanya, such as Advaita Prabhu, Nityānanda, Gadādhara and Śrīvāsa.