Vivekachudamani
by Shankara | 1921 | 49,785 words | ISBN-13: 9788175051065
The Vivekachudamani is a collection of poetical couplets authored by Shankara around the eighth century. The philosophical school this compilation attempts to expose is called ‘Advaita Vedanta’, or non-dualism, one of the classical orthodox philosophies of Hinduism. The book teaches Viveka: discrimination between the real and the unreal. Shankara d...
Verse 37
शान्ता महान्तो निवसन्ति सन्तो
वसन्तवल्लोकहितं चरन्तः ।
तीर्णाः स्वयं भीमभवार्णवं जनान्
अहेतुनान् यानपि तारयन्तः ॥ ३७ ॥śāntā mahānto nivasanti santo
vasantavallokahitaṃ carantaḥ |
tīrṇāḥ svayaṃ bhīmabhavārṇavaṃ janān
ahetunān yānapi tārayantaḥ || 37 ||37. There are good souls, calm and magnanimous, who do good to others as does the spring, and who, having themselves crossed this dreadful ocean of birth and death, help others also to cross the same, without any motive whatsoever.
Notes:
[Do good...... spring—i. e. unasked, out of their heart’s bounty, as the spring infuses new life into animate and inanimate nature, unobserved and unsought. The next Sloka follows up the idea. ]