आपदो या दुरुत्तारा याश्च तुच्छाः कुयोनयः । तास्ता मौर्ख्यात् प्रसूयन्ते खदिरादिव कण्टकाः ॥ १६ ॥
āpadō yā duruttārā yāśca tucchāḥ kuyōnayaḥ | tāstā maurkhyāt prasūyantē khadirādiva kaṇṭakāḥ || 16 ||
Translation
The calamities that are hard to cross, and the low and wretched births, all of them spring from folly, as thorns from the khadira tree.
Word by word
- āpadō
- (āpadaḥ) the calamities
- yā
- (yāḥ) that
- duruttārā
- (duruttārāḥ) hard to cross
- yāś
- (yāḥ) and those
- ca
- and
- tucchāḥ
- wretched
- kuyōnayaḥ
- low births
- tāstāḥ
- all of them
- maurkhyāt
- from folly
- prasūyantē
- spring
- khadirād
- (khadirāt) from the khadira tree
- iva
- as
- kaṇṭakāḥ
- thorns
Meaning
The khadira is an acacia, full of thorns. The thorns do not come to it. They are simply what it grows. The comparison says that folly does not attract misfortune from outside. It produces it. The teaching on low birth is an inherited one: the tradition holds that what one is born into follows from what one has been, and the verse takes that for granted in order to make a sharper point, that the root of it all is failing to think.