SB 1.5.10 (1962)
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
TEXT No. 10
Na tad vachas chitrapadam harer yasha
Jagat pavitram pragrinita karhichit
Tad vayasam tiriham ushanti manasa
Na yatra hansa niramanti ushiksayah
ENGLISH SYNONYMS
Na—not, Tad—that, Vachas—vocabulary, Chitrapadam—decorative, Harer—of the Lord, Yasho—glories, Jagat—universe, Pavitram—sanctified, Pragrinita—described, Karhichit—hardly, tad—that, Vayasam—crows, Tirtham—pilgrimage, Ushanti—think, Manasa—saintly persons, Na—not, Yatra—where, Hansa—all perfect beings, Niramanti—take pleasure, Ushiksaya—those who reside in the transcendental abode.
TRANSLATION
The set of vocabulary, in which there is no description of the glories of the Lord which can sanctify the whole universal atmosphere,—is considered by the saintly persons, as the pilgrimage of the crows where the all perfect persons do not derive any pleasure on account of their being inhabitant of the transcedental abode.
PURPORT
The crows and the ducks are not the birds of the same feather on account of their different mental attitude. Similarly the fruitive workers or the passionate man is compared with the crows whereas the all perfect saintly persons are compared with the ducks and swans. The crows do take pleasure in a place where refused remnants of foodstuff are thrown out as much as the passionate fruitive worker do take pleasure in wine and woman and similar places for gross sense-pleasure. The ducks and swans do not take pleasure in the place where crows are assembled for conferences and meetings but they are very rarely seen particularly in the atmosphere of natural scenic beauty where there is transparent reservoir of water nicely decorated with stems of lotus flower in variegated colourful natural beauty. That is the difference between the two classes of birds.
Nature has influenced different species of life—by different mentality of the living entities and it is not possible to bring them up into the same rank and file.
Similarly there are different kinds of literature for study of different types of men of different mentality. Mostly the market literatures which attract men of the crow's categories are literatures containing refused remnants of sensuous topics. They are generally known as mundane talks in relation with the gross body and subtle mind. They are full of subject matter described in decorative language full of mundane poetic and literary art by similes and metaphorical arrangements; but with all they are void in the matter of glorifying the Lord. Such decorative poetry and prose on any subject matter is considered as decoration of the dead body and the superficial agitated mind. Spiritually advanced men who are compared with the Swans do not take pleasure in such dead literatures which may be sources of pleasure for men who are spiritually dead. These literatures in the mode of passion and ignorance are distributed under different labels but hardly they can help mitigating the spiritual urge of the human being and as such the swanlike spiritually advanced men have nothing to do with such mundane remnants. Such spiritually advanced men are called also the manasas because such saintly persons do always keep up to the standard of transcendental voluntary service of the Lord in the spiritual plane which forbids attraction completely from fruitive activities for gross bodily sense satisfaction or subtle speculation of the material egoistic mind.
Social literary men, scientists, mundane poets, theoritical philosophers, politicians who are completely absorbed in the material advancement of sense-pleasure,—are all dolls of the material energy. They do take pleasure in a place where the same rejected subject matters are thrown. According to Swami Sridhar such places are compared with the pleasure of the prostitute hunters.
But literatures which describes the glories of the Lord, are enjoyed by the Paramhansas who have grasped the essence of human activities.