Friday, November 06, 2009

Kasya tvam. Kah kuta aayat

A verse from Bhajagovindam by Adi Sankara that I loved as soon as I saw it

Kaa te kaanta kaste putrah
Samsaro'yam ativa vicitrah
Kasya tvam kah kuta ayat
Tattvam cintaya tadiha bhratah

Translates to

Who is your wife ? Who is your son ?
In this world these are extremely wonderful
Of whom are you ? Whence have you come from
Think of this my brother

I don't have a keyboard with phonetics to transliterate properly but I hope it's not too hard to read. The only word in the traslation I put that I am not really happy with is wonderful for "vicitrah".
We could look up a dictionary to see what it really means, but I suspect that it has several meanings ... In this context I feel it means more like extremely intriguing, something more like - these are really good questions to ask.
But the verse itself is so wonderful. Simple, easy to ready and with enough in it to ponder for hours - typical Adi Sankara style ...
So the though for the day is
"Kasya tvam ? Kah kuta aayat ? " Who are you ? Where from you have come ?!?