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Read one verse of Śrī Caitanya Caritamrta with its Bengali, transliteration, word meanings, translation and study points.
Śrī Caitanya Caritamrta · Text Ādi 14.29
মাটি—দেহ, মাটি—ভক্ষ্য, দেখহ বিচারি’ ।
অবিচারে দেহ দোষ, কি বলিতে পারি ॥ ২৯ ॥
māṭi — deha, māṭi — bhakṣya, dekhaha vicāri’
avicāre deha doṣa, ki balite pāri
“This body is a transformation of dirt, and the eatables are also a transformation of dirt. Please reflect upon this. You are blaming Me without consideration. What can I say?”
Read Śrīla Prabhupāda's purport on Vedabase.ioThree study points drawn from the translation and purport.
The child argued that both the body and its food are transformations of dirt. The purport identifies this as Māyāvāda philosophy, which takes everything to be one.
Eating, sleeping, mating and defending are bodily necessities, not spiritual necessities. Greater involvement in them means greater involvement in material activities.
Māyāvādī philosophers mistakenly consider devotional activities to be bodily activities.
Śrīla Prabhupāda's own sentences, chosen from the purport as its central points. Read the full purport on Vedabase to see them in place.
The purport of CC Ādi 14.29 quotesBG 14.26
They cannot understand the simple explanation in the Bhagavad-gītā (14.26):
Each link is a verse the purport itself quotes, or a purport elsewhere that quotes this verse, shown with the purport's own words.
Parental tenderness and play. Nimāi’s childhood alternates affection, mischief, and revelations.
The mood of Ādi 14 as a whole, an editorial reading, not the text itself. See the emotional atlas
From Śrīla Prabhupāda's chapter summary, the lines nearest this verse:
Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura has given a summary of this chapter in his Amṛta-pravāha-bhāṣya: “In the fourteenth chapter there is a description of how Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu enjoyed His childhood pastimes — crawling, crying, eating dirt and giving intelligence to His mother, favoring a brāhmaṇa guest, riding on the shoulders of two thieves and misleading them to His own house, and, on the plea of being diseased, taking prasādam in the house of Hiraṇya and Jagadīśa on the Ekādaśī day.Read the whole chapter summaryBack to this verse in Ādi 14
Learn the words of the verse.
The themes of love and mercy this verse speaks of.
Audārya · Love that moves outward
The freely offered gift of bhakti and prema, especially through nāma-saṅkīrtana and Mahāprabhu’s compassionate dealings. · In the Prema Atlas
In this verse: “without consideration”
Concept links are an editorial study map; only the verse is the text itself.
Take one thing from this verse into your day.
How can you distinguish attention to bodily necessities from engagement in devotional activities?
Set aside a brief moment today for a devotional activity rather than additional bodily enjoyment.
Study points are short summaries, not the translation. Confirm them in the original text and purport on Vedabase.
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