श्रीराम उवाच । भगवन् मुनिशार्दूल किमिवेह मनोभ्रमे । विद्यते कथमुत्पन्नं मनो मायामयं कुतः ॥ १ ॥
śrīrāma uvāca | bhagavan muniśārdūla kimivēha manōbhramē | vidyatē kathamutpannaṁ manō māyāmayaṁ kutaḥ || 1 ||
Translation
Rāma said: Lord, tiger among sages, what truly is here, in this delusion that is the mind? How was the mind, made of māyā, born, and from what?
Word by word
- bhagavan
- lord
- muni
- among sages
- śārdūla
- tiger
- kim
- what
- iva
- truly (as it were)
- iha
- here
- manō
- (manaḥ) the mind; of the mind
- bhramē
- in the delusion
- vidyatē
- is
- katham
- how
- utpannaṁ
- was born
- māyā
- māyā
- mayaṁ
- made of
- kutaḥ
- from what
Meaning
The last sarga ended by showing the mind as never born, spreading its world like a conjuror's show. Rāma does not stop at that. The commentary says that, having heard that the mind is unreal, he asks three things: what the ground is on which it is laid, how it comes to be laid there, and why what is laid there is unreal. A delusion always has a ground, as the snake seen in the dusk has the rope. The question is the right one for a reader too: once one sees that one's thoughts are not what they claim to be, one asks what is there when they are seen through.