श्रीराम उवाच । एवमभ्युत्थितानर्थशतसङ्कटकोटरे । जगदालोक्य निर्मग्नं मनो मननकर्दमे ॥ १ ॥
śrīrāma uvāca | ēvamabhyutthitānarthaśatasaṅkaṭakōṭarē | jagadālōkya nirmagnaṁ manō mananakardamē || 1 ||
Translation
Śrī Rāma said: Seeing the world thus, a hollow of hundreds of straits where evils have risen up, my mind is sunk in the mire of brooding.
Word by word
- śrī
- Śrī
- rāma
- Rāma
- uvāca
- said
- ēvam
- thus
- abhyutthita
- have risen up
- anartha
- where evils
- śata
- of hundreds
- saṅkaṭa
- of straits
- kōṭarē
- a hollow
- jagad
- (jagat) the world
- ālōkya
- seeing
- nirmagnaṁ
- is sunk
- manō
- (manaḥ) my mind
- manana
- of brooding
- kardamē
- in the mire
Meaning
The last sarga ended in resolve: the seal set on the mind for peace (1.29.23). This one begins with honesty about what that resolve has not yet done. Rāma has seen the world clearly, as the commentary puts it, as a blind well full of hundreds of evils in which all beings are sunk; and the seeing has not freed him. His mind is stuck in the mud of thinking about it (manana-kardama). This is a real stage of the way, and the text does not skip it. Dispassion takes away the taste for the world, but it does not by itself give anything in its place, and the mind that has lost its old pleasures and found nothing new broods. The reader who has seen through something they loved and then felt only empty may recognise the mire, and take heart that Rāma was there too, and that the teaching begins here.