ततो युद्धं विना भूपा महीं पालयितुं क्षमाः । न समर्थास्तदा याताः प्रजाभिः सह दैन्यताम् ॥ १५ ॥
tatō yuddhaṁ vinā bhūpā mahīṁ pālayituṁ kṣamāḥ | na samarthāstadā yātāḥ prajābhiḥ saha dainyatām || 15 ||
Translation
Then kings, who had been able to protect the earth without war, were able to no longer, and together with their subjects fell into misery.
Word by word
- tatō
- (tataḥ) then
- yuddhaṁ
- war
- vinā
- without
- bhūpā
- (bhūpāḥ) kings
- mahīṁ
- the earth
- pālayituṁ
- to protect
- kṣamāḥ
- who had been able
- na
- not
- samarthās
- (samarthāḥ) able
- tadā
- then
- yātāḥ
- fell
- prajābhiḥ
- their subjects
- saha
- together with
- dainyatām
- into misery
Meaning
Dainya is wretchedness, the low state of one who feels helpless. The commentary gives its root in a single sentence: taking the body for oneself, they feared that when the body perished in war, the self would perish. This is the first doctrinal point of the passage, and it is a sharp one. The kings' misery has a mistaken identity at the bottom of it. What they lacked was self-knowledge, and the sages will now teach exactly that.