Tuesday, 31 March 2015

Subhashita #0011


The more a person becomes learned, the more he/she should learn to be quiet. When a learned person starts showing off his/her skills too much too often, it becomes a source of false prestige and such a person may eventually end up as a slave to other people's desires. This is described in the following verse:

śuka tava paṭhanaṁ vyasanaṁ
na guṇaḥ sa guṇābhāsaḥ
samajani yenāmaraṇaṁ
śaraṇaṁ pañjara-vāsaḥ

"[The crow, who is flying free says to the parrot in the cage]: O parrot! Although regular study and memorization is a great quality, but in your case it is not so. In your case it only appears to be a good quality [but actually gives a bad result]. This is because your quality of singing well, memorizing and repeating keeps you in a cage until you die."

— (Subhāṣita-ratna-bhāṇḍāgāra, Śukaḥ, Page 227, Verse 184)

(Originally posted on Facebook on 29-March-2015).

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