मत्तेभकर्णाग्रचलः कायो लम्बाम्बुभङ्गुरः । न संत्यजति मां यावत्तावदेनं त्यजाम्यहम् ॥ ४० ॥
mattēbhakarṇāgracalaḥ kāyō lambāmbubhaṅguraḥ | na saṁtyajati māṁ yāvattāvadēnaṁ tyajāmyaham || 40 ||
Translation
The body, shaking like the tip of a rutting elephant's ear, fragile as a hanging drop of water: before it leaves me, I leave it.
Word by word
- matta
- a rutting
- ibha
- elephant's
- karṇa
- ear
- agra
- the tip of
- calaḥ
- shaking like
- kāyō
- (kāyaḥ) the body
- lamba
- a hanging
- ambu
- drop of water
- bhaṅguraḥ
- fragile as
- na
- not
- saṁtyajati
- it leaves
- māṁ
- me
- yāvat
- before
- tāvad
- (tāvat) then
- ēnaṁ
- it
- tyajāmi
- leave
- aham
- I
Meaning
An elephant's ear flaps without rest; a drop hanging from a leaf falls at any moment (as in 1.14.1). The body is as unsteady and as frail. And then Rāma's resolve: "before it leaves me, I leave it" (na saṃtyajati māṃ yāvat, tāvad enaṃ tyajāmy aham). This is not suicide but renunciation in the inner sense: to let go of the identification with the body before death forces the parting. The reader is offered the deepest practice of the sarga: to leave the body inwardly while still living in it.