Shloka 47

Nārāyaṇasya Guhya-nāmāni Niruktāni (Etymologies of Nārāyaṇa’s Secret Epithets) / नारायणस्य गुह्यनामानि निरुक्तानि

Devanagari script

इनके साथ ही इन्द्रियोंके पाँच विषय अर्थात्‌ स्पर्श, शब्द, रूप, रस और गन्ध एवं मन और अहंकार--इन सम्पूर्ण व्यक्ताव्यक्तको मिलानेसे चौबीस तत्त्वोंका समूह होता है, उसे व्यक्ताव्यक्तमय समुदाय कहा गया है ।।

Transliteration

etaiḥ sarvaiḥ samāyuktaḥ pumān ity abhidhīyate | trivargaṃ tu sukhaṃ duḥkhaṃ jīvitaṃ maraṇaṃ tathā ||

Translation

Nārada dit : «À cela s’ajoutent les cinq objets des sens—toucher, son, forme, saveur et odeur—ainsi que le mental (manas) et l’ego (ahaṃkāra). En réunissant tout le manifesté et l’inmanifesté, on obtient l’ensemble des vingt-quatre principes, appelé la communauté “manifesté-inmanifesté”. Quand un être est conjoint à tous ces constituants, on le nomme “puruṣa” (la personne incarnée). Et dans cette condition incarnée se trouvent la triade des fins mondaines, avec plaisir et douleur, et de même vie et mort—montrant comment l’expérience du soi dans le monde manifesté est ordonnée par ces facteurs.»

Word by Word

• {'etaiḥ': 'by these (instrumental plural

• referring to the enumerated principles/constituents)', 'sarvaiḥ': 'by all (of them), entirely', 'samāyuktaḥ': 'joined/associated/combined with', 'pumān': 'man

• the embodied individual (puruṣa in common usage here)', 'iti': 'thus', 'abhidhīyate': 'is called

• is designated', 'trivargam': 'the three aims of worldly life (dharma, artha, kāma)', 'tu': 'and/but (connective emphasis)', 'sukham': 'pleasure

• happiness', 'duḥkham': 'pain

• suffering', 'jīvitam': 'life

• living', 'maraṇam': 'death', 'tathā': 'and also

Speaker

नारद उवाच

Characters & Entities

• Nārada

Educational Q&A

What is the core teaching?

The verse teaches that the ‘person’ (pumān/puruṣa in the sense of the embodied individual) is identified through association with the enumerated constituents of experience; within that embodied framework arise the worldly triad (dharma–artha–kāma) and the paired opposites of pleasure/pain and life/death.

What is happening in the narrative?

Nārada continues an analytical exposition (in a Sāṅkhya-like register) describing how the individual is spoken of in relation to the constituents of manifest existence, and how ordinary human pursuits and experiences—aims of life, pleasure and pain, and mortality—belong to that conditioned, embodied state.