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ŚB 4.20.2

Devanagari

श्रीभगवानुवाच
एष तेऽकार्षीद्भङ्गं हयमेधशतस्य ह ।
क्षमापयत आत्मानममुष्य क्षन्तुमर्हसि ॥ २ ॥

Text

śrī-bhagavān uvāca
eṣa te ’kārṣīd bhaṅgaṁ
haya-medha-śatasya ha
kṣamāpayata ātmānam
amuṣya kṣantum arhasi

Synonyms

śrī-bhagavān uvāca — the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Lord Viṣṇu, spoke; eṣaḥ — this Lord Indra; te — your; akārṣīt — performed; bhaṅgam — disturbance; haya — horse; medha — sacrifice; śatasya — of the one-hundredth; ha — indeed; kṣamāpayataḥ — who is asking pardon; ātmānam — unto yourself; amuṣya — him; kṣantum — to forgive; arhasi — you ought.

Translation

Lord Viṣṇu, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, said: My dear King Pṛthu, Indra, the King of heaven, has disturbed your execution of one hundred sacrifices. Now he has come with Me to be forgiven by you. Therefore excuse him.

Purport

In this verse the word ātmānam is very significant. It is a custom among yogīs and jñānīs to address one another (or even an ordinary man) as one’s self, for a transcendentalist never accepts a living being to be the body. Since the individual self is part and parcel of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the self and the Superself are qualitatively nondifferent. As the next verse will explain, the body is only a superficial covering, and consequently an advanced transcendentalist will not make a distinction between one self and another.