Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 1.5.10
Blended reading (Sanskrit + English inline)
Crows and swans are not birds of the same feather, because of their different mental attitudes. The fruitive workers or passionate men are compared to the crows, whereas the all-perfect saintly persons are compared to the swans. The crows take pleasure in a place where garbage is thrown out, just as the passionate fruitive workers take pleasure in wine and woman and places for gross sense pleasure. The swans do not take pleasure in the places where crows are assembled for conferences and meetings. They are instead seen in the atmosphere of natural scenic beauty where there are transparent reservoirs of water nicely decorated with stems of lotus flowers in variegated colors of natural beauty. That is the difference between the two classes of birds.
Nature has influenced different species of life with different mentalities, and it is not possible to bring them up into the same rank and file.
Similarly, there are different kinds of literature for different types of men of different mentality. Mostly the market literatures which attract men of the crow’s categories are literatures containing refused remnants of sensuous topics. They are generally known as mundane talks in relation with the gross body and subtle mind. They are full of subject matter described in decorative language full of mundane similes and metaphorical arrangements. Yet with all that, they do not glorify the Lord. Such poetry and prose, on any subject matter, is considered decoration of a dead body. Spiritually advanced men who are compared to the swans do not take pleasure in such dead literatures, which are sources of pleasure for men who are spiritually dead. These literatures in the modes of passion and ignorance are distributed under different labels, but they can hardly help the spiritual urge of the human being, and thus the swanlike spiritually advanced men have nothing to do with them. Such spiritually advanced men are called mānasa also because they always keep up the standard of transcendental voluntary service to the Lord on the spiritual plane. This completely forbids fruitive activities for gross bodily sense satisfaction or subtle speculation of the material egoistic mind.
Social literary men, scientists, mundane poets, theoretical philosophers and politicians who are completely absorbed in the material advancement of sense pleasure are all dolls of the material energy. They take pleasure in a place where rejected subject matters are thrown. According to Svāmī Śrīdhara, this is the pleasure of the prostitute-hunters.
But literatures which describe the glories of the Lord are enjoyed by the paramahaṁsas who have grasped the essence of human activities.
Even poetic works should be condemned if they are devoid of glorification of the Vāsudeva.
A work whose verses do not proclaim the glories of the Lord — which purify even the whole world composed of speakers and listeners, what to speak of the author — is actually like a dead body. It is very impure without describing the glories of the Lord which are like life itself, even though it may be endowed with qualities and poetic ornaments ((citra-padam) and is also a cause for surprise or dismay (another meaning of citra).
It is considered to be (uśanti) a place for crows, a hole filled with various left-over foods, which is desired by persons filled with lust, who are like crows. It is a place where the swans of Mānasa-sarovara (mānasā haṁsā) or the devotees situated in the mind of the Lord absolutely (ni for nitarām) never enjoy (ramanti).
sādhavo hṛdayaṁ mahyaṁ sādhūnāṁ hṛdayaṁ tv aham mad-anyat te na jānanti nāhaṁ tebhyo manāg api
Saints are my heart, and only I am their hearts. They do not know anyone but me, and therefore I do not recognize anyone besides them as mine. SB 9.4.68
Or mānasāḥ can mean “those who destroy (sā) respect (māna) for those words since they find no pleasure in them. Or mānasāḥ can mean the mental sons of Brahmā such as the Kumāras. The Kumāras proclaim (mānasāḥ uśanti) this. Uśik means pleasant and kśaya means lake in the case of reference to the swans, or it can mean abode. Thus uśik-kṣayāḥ means those possessing the abode of the Lord. This would refer to the Kumāras who were free to enter the Lord’s abode.
The word vacaḥ means statements, what is spoken. Therefore statements like the following would appear to make Bhāgavatam a place for the crows.
nābhāgo nabhagāpatyaṁ yaṁ tataṁ bhrātaraḥ kavim yaviṣṭhaṁ vyabhajan dāyaṁ brahmacāriṇam āgatam
The brothers gave to their youngest learned brother Nābhāga their father Nabhaga as his share of the property when he returned from brahmacārī life. SB 9.4.1
And it may be argued that none of the Purāṇas written by Vyāsa should be considered as a place of crows, since nothing there is completely devoid of the glories of the Lord. To this however it can be said:
kali-mala-saṁhati-kālano ’khileśo harir itaratra na gīyate hy abhīkṣṇam iha tu punar bhagavān aśeṣa-mūrtiḥ paripaṭhito ’nu-padaṁ kathā-prasaṅgaiḥ
Nārāyaṇa, the soul of the universal form, who annihilates the accumulated sins of the Kali age, is not glorified much in other works. But Bhagavān, with unlimited forms, is abundantly and constantly described throughout the various narrations of this Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. SB 12.12.66
Taking this verse and the next verse in the Bhāgavatam into consideration, the word vacaḥ should mean the general import of the discussion, rather than each sentence. That being the case, the chapters and stories of Bhāgavatam are all ornaments to the glories of the Lord. In other Purāṇas, however many of the stories are devoid of the glories of the lord and are therefore the place of the crows. Thus there is no contradiction.
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- Which of my regular reading or listening is, by this standard, a pilgrimage for crows?
- What single substitution this week would shift my diet toward what saints actually savor?
My note
Source: vedabase.io