Shloka 28
नरनारायण-नारदसंवादः
Nara-Nārāyaṇa–Nārada Discourse on Vision, Elements, and Entry into Vāsudeva
इस योनि-सम्बन्धसे कोई सकुशल जीता हुआ बाहर निकल आता है, तब कोई संतानको प्राप्त होता है और पुनः परस्परके सम्बन्धमें संलग्न हो जाता है ।। स तस्य सहजातस्य सप्तमीं नवमीं दशाम् । प्राप्तुवन्ति तत: पजच न भवन्ति गतायुष:,अनादिकालसे साथ उत्पन्न होनेवाले शरीरके साथ जीवात्मा अपना सम्बन्ध स्थापित कर लेता है। इस शरीरकी गर्भवास, जन्म, बाल्य, कौमार, पौगण्ड, यौवन, वृद्धत्व, जरा, प्राणरोध और नाश--ये दस दशाएँ होती हैं। इनमेंसे सातवीं और नवीं दशाको भी शरीरगत पाँचों भूत ही प्राप्त होते हैं, आत्मा नहीं। आयु समाप्त होनेपर शरीरकी नवीं दशामें पहुँचनेपर ये पाँच भूत नहीं रहते। अर्थात् दसवीं दशाको प्राप्त हो जाते हैं
nārada uvāca | asmin yoni-sambandhe kaścid eva sukhena jīvan bahir niṣkrāmati; tataḥ kaścit santānaṃ prāpya punaḥ paraspara-sambandheṣu saṃlagno bhavati || sa tasya sahajātasyāḥ saptamīṃ navamīṃ daśāṃ prāpnuvanti tataḥ pañca na bhavanti gatāyuṣaḥ ||
Narada said: From this entanglement of embodied existence, someone may emerge alive and well; then, obtaining offspring, he again becomes caught in mutual attachments and relations. The living Self, having from beginningless time associated itself with the body that is born along with it, passes through the body’s successive conditions—confinement in the womb, birth, childhood, boyhood, adolescence, youth, old age, senescence, the stopping of the vital breath, and destruction. In the seventh and ninth conditions it is the five material elements of the body that undergo these changes, not the Self; and when the allotted lifespan is exhausted, those elements no longer remain in the ninth condition, meaning the body proceeds to the tenth—its dissolution.
नारद उवाच
Educational Q&A
The passage distinguishes the imperishable Self from the body’s material processes: the body, made of the five elements, passes through stages up to dissolution, while the ātman is not the agent of bodily decay. Ethically, it urges detachment from repetitive cycles of attachment—especially through family and social bonds—that perpetuate saṃsāra.
Nārada is explaining how beings repeatedly enter and exit embodied life: even if one survives birth and grows, one often forms new attachments by producing offspring and re-entering relational entanglements. He then outlines the body’s ten conditions and clarifies that these transformations belong to the elemental body, culminating in death and dissolution.