Skanda Purana — Mahesvara Khanda, Shloka 26

Devanagari script

अजविक्रयकृद्व्याधः कुण्डाशी भृतको भवेत् । नास्तिकस्तिल पिंडी स्यादश्रद्धो गीतजीवनः

Transliteration

ajavikrayakṛdvyādhaḥ kuṇḍāśī bhṛtako bhavet | nāstikastila piṃḍī syādaśraddho gītajīvanaḥ

Translation

ဆိတ်ရောင်း၍ အသက်မွေးသော သတ်သမားသည် ကုဏ္ဍာရှီ (မသန့်ရှင်းသော အစာစားသူ) ဖြစ်ကာ အလုပ်သမားငှားရမ်းသူအဖြစ် မွေးဖွား၏။ နတ်မယုံ (နာස්တိက) သည် တီလပိဏ္ဍီ ဟူသော သနားစရာ အနိမ့်ကျသော အဖြစ်သို့ ရောက်၏။ ယုံကြည်မှုမရှိသူသည် အတွင်းစိတ်မပါဘဲ သီချင်းဆိုကာ အသက်မွေးသူ ဖြစ်၏။

Word by Word

• अज-विक्रय-कृत्-व्याधः: a hunter who sells goats
• अज-विक्रय-कृत्-व्याधः: Karta (Subject/कर्ता)
• Type: Noun
• Root: अज (प्रातिपदिक) + विक्रय (प्रातिपदिक) + कृ (धातु) (कृत्-प्रत्ययान्त) + व्याध (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: पुंलिङ्ग, प्रथमा (1st), एकवचन; समासः—बहु-तत्पुरुष-समासः (अजानां विक्रयं करोति इति) + व्याधः

• कुण्ड-आशी: one who eats from a bowl/pot
• कुण्ड-आशी: Karta (Subject/कर्ता)
• Type: Noun
• Root: कुण्ड (प्रातिपदिक) + आशिन् (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: पुंलिङ्ग, प्रथमा (1st), एकवचन; उपपद-तत्पुरुषः (कुण्डे अश्नाति)

• भृतकः: a hireling/servant
• भृतकः: Karta (Subject/कर्ता)
• Type: Noun
• Root: भृतक (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: पुंलिङ्ग, प्रथमा (1st), एकवचन

• भवेत्: would become
• भवेत्: Kriya (Action/क्रिया)
• Type: Verb
• Root: भू (धातु)
• Form: विधिलिङ् (Optative), प्रथमपुरुष, एकवचन; परस्मैपदम्

• नास्तिकः: an atheist
• नास्तिकः: Karta (Subject/कर्ता)
• Type: Noun
• Root: नास्तिक (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: पुंलिङ्ग, प्रथमा (1st), एकवचन

• तिल-पिण्डी: a ball/lump of sesame (sesame-cake)
• तिल-पिण्डी: Karta (Subject/कर्ता)
• Type: Noun
• Root: तिल (प्रातिपदिक) + पिण्डी (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: स्त्रीलिङ्ग, प्रथमा (1st), एकवचन; तत्पुरुषः (तिलानां पिण्डी)

• स्यात्: would be
• स्यात्: Kriya (Action/क्रिया)
• Type: Verb
• Root: अस् (धातु)
• Form: विधिलिङ् (Optative), प्रथमपुरुष, एकवचन; परस्मैपदम्

• अश्रद्धः: faithless
• अश्रद्धः: Karta (Subject/कर्ता)
• Type: Adjective
• Root: अ-श्रद्ध (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: पुंलिङ्ग, प्रथमा (1st), एकवचन; नञ्-पूर्वक (श्रद्धा-रहितः)

• गीत-जीवनः: living by singing
• गीत-जीवनः: Karta (Subject/कर्ता)
• Type: Adjective
• Root: गीत (प्रातिपदिक) + जीवन (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: पुंलिङ्ग, प्रथमा (1st), एकवचन; तत्पुरुषः (गीतेन जीवनम्/गीतं जीवनं यस्य)

Speaker

Lomaharṣaṇa (Sūta), narrating to the sages (deduced from Māheśvara-khaṇḍa context)

Visual Art Cues

Scene: A marketplace scene: a hunter/butcher trading goats; karmic outcome shows him as a low-status dependent servant (bhṛtaka) and kuṇḍāśī (degraded eater). Another vignette: a nāstika shrinks into a pitiable tila-piṇḍī form. A faithless singer performs for coins, face hollow, music detached from devotion.

Characters & Entities

• vyādha
• nāstika

FAQs

What is the primary spiritual lesson of this shloka?

Livelihood rooted in harm and a life devoid of śraddhā (faith) leads to degrading outcomes and spiritual diminishment.

Which specific holy site (Tirtha) is glorified here?

No holy site is named; the verse is about conduct (ācāra) and karmic result.

What ritualistic prescription is mentioned?

None explicitly; it implicitly praises non-violence and śraddhā as the basis of dharma.