[Advaita-l] Meaning of this verse

[Siva Senani Nori]

पदच्छेदः 
अगाध.जल.सञ्चारी (n, 1/1) न (i) गर्वम् (n, 2/1) याति (v, pr, 3/1) रोहितः (n, 1/1) अङ्गुष्ठ.ओदक.मात्रेण (n, 3/1) शफरी (n, 1/1) फर्फरायते
(v, 3/1)
 
n means noun; 3/1 means third (instrumental) case, singular etc.; v means verb; pr means present tense; 3/1 means third person, singular; i means indeclinable, an avyaya.
 
अगाधम् is one whose depth is not known; such waters are अगाधजलम्; one who roams in such waters is अगाधजलसञ्चारी. Here this is an adjective of the fish, rohita. It must be a deep-water ocean-fish.
 
The root या is 'to go'; याति is 'goes to'. Where? गर्वम्. न गर्वं याति means it, rohita, does not affect pride (on account of it roaming the deep waters where the pressure cannot be borne by ordinary fish or even humans). How do we know it affect no pride? Because it does not make any noise.
 
On the other hand, a शफरी dwells in shallow waters, just about as deep as a thumb - अङ्गुष्ठमात्रम. Even with that - the instrumental case affixed kicks in to convey this sense of hetu, reason (for the pride of SapharI) - अङ्गुष्ठमात्रेण it makes a great deal of noise of phar-phar. फर्फरायते is darting around. It must be a fresh-water fish, living in shallow waters, and moving short distances at great speeds.
 
The sense is that alpas have a lot aaDambaram, but the ones with stuff stay quiet. As often we see on our list!
 
Rohita is anything red (it is the past participle of red in Sanskrit). Monier Williams has this entry, amongst others, against Rohita: a kind fish, Cyprinus Rohitaka. This is called as ruhi maash, fish so preferred in Bengal and Assam.
 
SapharI is listed, again by Monier Williams, as Cyprinus Saphore, a kind of bright little fish that glistens when darting about in darting waters. 
 
Don't know the source.
 
Regards
Senani
 
From: V Subrahmanian <v.subrahmanian at gmail.com>
>To: A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
>Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2011 11:09 AM
>Subject: [Advaita-l] Meaning of this verse
>
>Namaste.
>Could anyone explain the meaning of this verse and also the source, if any?
>
>अगाधजलसंचारी न गर्वं याति रोहितः ।
>अण्गुष्ठोदकमात्रेण शफरी फर्फरायते ॥
>
>rohitaH and shapharI refer to (types of) fish.
>
>Regards,
>subrahmanian.v
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