Shloka 17
अन्तर्वन-विद्यारण्योपमा
The Allegory of the Inner Forest of Knowledge
सप्त स्त्रियस्तत्र वसन्ति सद्य- स्त्ववाड्मुखा भानुमत्यो जनित्रय: । ऊर्ध्व रसानाददते प्रजाभ्य: सर्वान् यथा सत्यमनित्यता च,वहाँ सात स्त्रियाँ निवास करती हैं, जो लज्जाके मारे अपना मुँह नीचेकी ओर किये रहती हैं। वे चिन्मय ज्योतिसे प्रकाशित होती हैं। वे सबकी जननी हैं और वे उस वनमें रहनेवाली प्रजासे सब प्रकारके उत्तम रस उसी प्रकार ग्रहण करती हैं, जैसे अनित्यता सत्यको ग्रहण करती है
sapta striyastatra vasanti sadya-stvavāḍmukhā bhānumatyo janitrayaḥ | ūrdhva-rasānādadate prajābhyaḥ sarvān yathā satyam anityatā ca ||
The brāhmaṇa said: “There dwell seven women there, ever with faces cast downward in modesty. They shine with conscious radiance and are the mothers of all. From the beings who live in that ‘forest’ they draw up every kind of finest essence—just as impermanence, in its own way, lays hold of truth.”
ब्राह्मण उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse uses an allegory of “seven women” who draw out the ‘essence’ of beings to point toward a metaphysical truth: all embodied life is subject to extraction, change, and dissolution, and impermanence continually ‘seizes’ what we take as stable. Ethically, it urges detachment and discernment—recognizing the transient nature of worldly enjoyments while seeking what is truly real (satya).
A brāhmaṇa speaker describes a symbolic scene: seven radiant, mother-like figures dwell in a certain place (likened to a forest) and draw upward the finest ‘juices’ from the beings there. The description is not merely literal; it frames a philosophical explanation about how life’s essences are taken up by higher principles and how impermanence relates to truth.