अहङ्कारवशादेव दोषकोशकदर्थताम् । ददाति दीनदीनानां संसारो विविधाकृतिः ॥ २ ॥
ahaṅkāravaśādēva dōṣakōśakadarthatām | dadāti dīnadīnānāṁ saṁsārō vividhākṛtiḥ || 2 ||
Translation
Only through the power of the ego does the world, in its many forms, give the poorest of the poor the misery of a treasury of faults.
Word by word
- ahaṅkāra
- of the ego
- vaśād
- (vaśāt) through the power
- ēva
- only
- dōṣa
- of faults
- kōśa
- a treasury
- kadarthatām
- the misery
- dadāti
- gives
- dīna
- of the poor
- dīnānāṁ
- the poorest
- saṁsārō
- (saṃsāraḥ) the world
- vividha
- many
- ākṛtiḥ
- in its forms
Meaning
The world (saṃsāra) has many shapes: goals, means, fruits, activities, as the commentary lists them. In itself it would be only a play of forms. What makes it a "treasury of faults" (doṣa-kośa), giving misery to the wretched, is the ego. The commentary says that the creatures of the world, after endless births and deaths, still run after petty pleasures, and are tossed by attraction and aversion; "all this is the gift of the ego, of nothing else". The reader is asked to look for the "I" inside each of their sorrows: not the event, but the "it happened to me, it was taken from me" that turns an event into suffering.