श्रीराम उवाच । यच्चेदं दृश्यते किञ्चिज्जगत्स्थावरजङ्गमम् । तत्सर्वमस्थिरं ब्रह्मन् स्वप्नसङ्गमसंनिभम् ॥ १ ॥
śrīrāma uvāca | yaccēdaṁ dṛśyatē kiñcijjagatsthāvarajaṅgamam | tatsarvamasthiraṁ brahman svapnasaṅgamasaṁnibham || 1 ||
Translation
Śrī Rāma said: Whatever is seen here, the world of the moving and the unmoving, all of it is unstable, brahmin, like a meeting in a dream.
Word by word
- śrī
- Śrī
- rāma
- Rāma
- uvāca
- said
- yac
- (yat) whatever
- ca
- and
- idaṁ
- here
- dṛśyatē
- is seen
- kiñcij
- (kiñcit) at all
- jagat
- the world
- sthāvara
- of the unmoving
- jaṅgamam
- and the moving
- tat
- that
- sarvam
- all of it
- asthiraṁ
- is unstable
- brahman
- brahmin
- svapna
- in a dream
- saṅgama
- a meeting
- saṁnibham
- like
Meaning
In a dream one meets friends, crowds, cities; on waking, none of them is there. The world of moving and unmoving things is like that meeting (svapna-saṅgama). The commentary sets out the purpose of the sarga: since everything is seen to change ceaselessly, no one can trust that any of it will stay, and so the taste for it fades. The dream image (1.18.60, 1.20.10, 1.27.35) now opens a whole sarga. The reader is asked to look at the world for a while as they would remember a dream: vivid, and already gone.