जनस्यैतस्य दुःखं तद् दृष्ट्वा सकललोककृत् । जगाम करुणामीशः पुत्रदुःखात् पिता यथा ॥ १७ ॥
janasyaitasya duḥkhaṁ tad dṛṣṭvā sakalalōkakṛt | jagāma karuṇāmīśaḥ putraduḥkhāt pitā yathā || 17 ||
Translation
Seeing the sorrow of these people, the Lord, the maker of all worlds, was moved to compassion, as a father is by the pain of his son.
Word by word
- janasya
- of people
- ētasya
- these
- duḥkhaṁ
- the sorrow
- tad
- that
- dṛṣṭvā
- seeing
- sakala
- of all
- lōka
- worlds
- kṛt
- the maker
- jagāma
- was moved
- karuṇām
- to compassion
- īśaḥ
- the Lord
- putra
- of his son
- duḥkhāt
- by the pain
- pitā
- a father
- yathā
- as
Meaning
The turning point of the story, and it comes from feeling. Knowledge descends because the creator saw pain and could not leave it alone. Karuṇā, compassion, is here the first cause of the entire teaching. The father and son image is chosen with care: a father does not ask whether his son deserves to hurt. It would have been possible for this work to treat suffering as a mere illusion, of no concern to one who knows, and at its highest level of analysis it will say something close to that. But it never lets that insight cancel this one. Whatever is finally true of sorrow, it is met first with tenderness, and teaching is what that tenderness does.