नाऽसतो विद्यते भावो नाऽभावो विद्यते सतः । यत्तु नाऽस्ति स्वभावेन कः क्लेशस्तस्य मार्जने ॥ ३८ ॥
nā’satō vidyatē bhāvō nā’bhāvō vidyatē sataḥ | yattu nā’sti svabhāvēna kaḥ klēśastasya mārjanē || 38 ||
Translation
The unreal has no being; the real has no non-being. What does not exist by its very nature: what trouble is there in wiping it away?
Word by word
- na
- no
- asatō
- (asataḥ) the unreal
- vidyatē
- has
- bhāvō
- (bhāvaḥ) being
- abhāvō
- (abhāvaḥ) non-being
- sataḥ
- the real
- yat
- what
- tu
- but
- asti
- exist
- svabhāvēna
- by its very nature
- kaḥ
- what
- klēśas
- (kleśaḥ) trouble
- tasya
- it
- mārjanē
- in wiping away
Meaning
The first line is the Bhagavad Gītā's (2.16). The commentary: the unreal never has existence and the real is never absent; what by nature is not, how hard can it be to clean away? The other commentary adds in a note that the existence of the unreal can be called neither a change, nor an appearance, nor its own nature, as with a flower of the sky; so it cannot be described, and removing it is no labour. One does not need to work to remove a thing that is not there; one needs only to see.