FolioCorpusŚrīmad-Bhāgavatam

Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 10.10.14

यथा कण्टकविद्धाङ्गो जन्तोर्नेच्छति तां व्यथाम् । जीवसाम्यं गतो लिङ्गैर्न तथाविद्धकण्टक: ॥ १४ ॥
yathā kaṇṭaka-viddhāṅgo
[yathaa kantaka-viddhaango]
jantor necchati tāṁ vyathām
[jantor nechchati taam vyathaam]
jīva-sāmyaṁ gato liṅgair
[jeeva-saamyam gato lingair]
na tathāviddha-kaṇṭakaḥ
[na tathaaviddha-kantakah]
Word-for-word
yathā — just as kaṇṭaka - viddha - aṅgaḥ — a person whose body has been pinpricked jantoḥ — of such an animal na — not icchati — desires tām — a particular vyathām — pain jīva - sāmyam gataḥ — when he understands that the position is the same for everyone liṅgaiḥ — by possessing a particular type of body na — not tathā — so aviddha - kaṇṭakaḥ — a person who has not been pinpricked .
Blended reading (Sanskrit + English inline)
yathā kaṇṭaka-viddhāṅgo
yathā
just as
kaṇṭaka - viddha - aṅgaḥ
a person whose body has been pinpricked
jantor necchati tāṁ vyathām
jantoḥ
of such an animal
jīva-sāmyaṁ gato liṅgair
na tathāviddha-kaṇṭakaḥ
na
not
icchati
desires
tām
a particular
vyathām
pain
jīva - sāmyam gataḥ
when he understands that the position is the same for everyone
liṅgaiḥ
by possessing a particular type of body
na
not
tathā
so
aviddha - kaṇṭakaḥ
a person who has not been pinpricked .
Important Words
  • kaṇṭaka-viddha-aṅgaḥ — one whose body has been pinpricked
    Compound: kaṇṭaka (thorn, pin) + viddha (pierced) + aṅga (body). The compact image carries the whole teaching — only the body that has known the pin reads the other's wince correctly. Gauḍīya devotees treasure this as the basis for kāruṇya.
  • vyathām — pain
    Accusative of vyathā. The same word used in SB 1.8.51 by Kuntī when she requests calamities (so she may always remember Kṛṣṇa). The verse here uses vyathā ethically; Kuntī uses it devotionally — both as Bhagavān-pointing instruments.
  • jīva-sāmyam — equality of jīvas
    Compound: jīva + sāmya (sameness). Gauḍīya frame: all jīvas are equal as parts of Kṛṣṇa (mamaivāṁśo jīva-loke); their bodily form differs, their svarūpa does not. Empathy follows from tattva, not sentiment.
  • aviddha-kaṇṭakaḥ — one not pricked by a pin
    Compound: a- (not) + viddha (pierced) + kaṇṭaka (pin). The man whom suffering has spared cannot read it in another. The verse withholds judgment — it simply describes a structural limit. Sat-saṅga is what supplies the missing wound vicariously.
By seeing their faces, one whose body has been pricked by pins can understand the pain of others who are pinpricked. Realizing that this pain is the same for everyone, he does not want others to suffer in this way. But one who has never been pricked by pins cannot understand this pain.
Purport

There is a saying, “The happiness of wealth is enjoyable by a person who has tasted the distress of poverty.” There is also another common saying, vandhyā ki bujhibe prasava-vedanā: “A woman who has not given birth to a child cannot understand the pain of childbirth.” Unless one comes to the platform of actual experience, one cannot realize what is pain and what is happiness in this material world. The laws of nature act accordingly. If one has killed an animal, one must himself be killed by that same animal. This is called māṁsa. Mām means “me,” and sa means “he.” As I am eating an animal, that animal will have the opportunity to eat me. In every state, therefore, it is ordinarily the custom that if a person commits murder he is hanged.

— A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda
Gauḍīya Ācāryas
Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura Gauḍīya
Translation
By seeing their faces, one whose body has been pricked by pins can understand the pain of others who are pinpricked. Realizing that this pain is the same for everyone, he does not want others to suffer in this way. But one who has never been pricked by pins cannot understand this pain.
Commentary

By seeing the symptoms (lingaih), such as withering of the face, one develops sympathy with others, understands their pain, having experienced it oneself. One who has not experienced being pierced by a thorn (aviddha kanthaka) cannot understand others pain.

Jīva Gosvāmī Gauḍīya
Commentary

The reason is given. One does not desire that the pain experienced by another being whose limb is pierced by a thorn should continue, since by seeing the symptoms like a contorted face, one attains a similar state of pain. Remembering one’s own pain one manifests mercy. Aviddha-kaṇṭakaḥ means “a person who has not been pierced by a thorn.” The members of the compound are reversed as in rāja-danta (principal tooth). Or it can mean “a person to whom thorns are not attached.”

Śrīdhara Svāmī Gauḍīya
Commentary

One who is not being pierced by a thorn does not desire the pain of a living being pierced by a thorn. Though one develops sympathy for another person, by seeing symptoms in the person’s limbs, he does not become similar to the person pierced, but desires that. A poor man, seeing his own suffering, sees such suffering in others.

Related values & verses
Related values
Discriminative WisdomAnahankarah (Freedom from False Ego)Ahimsa (Non-violence / Compassion)
Related verses
SB 4.29.1 SB 10.10.11 SB 10.10.12 SB 10.10.13 SB 10.10.15 SB 10.10.16 SB 10.10.17 BG 13.7 BG 10.4 BG 3.21 BG 12.3 BG 6.5 BG 16.1
Related lectures
Personal Guidance
Real compassion for others is born from your own tasted pain — let what has pricked you teach you never to inflict that prick on another soul.
Practical Applications
  • Recall one specific suffering you have personally tasted, and today refuse to inflict that exact pain on anyone within your reach.
  • Notice when you dismiss another's complaint as exaggeration — pause, and ask whether you are simply someone 'never pricked by that pin.'
  • Before eating, speaking, or acting today, apply the māṁsa test: would I accept this being done to me? If not, withdraw the act and offer the moment to Kṛṣṇa.
Analogy

Two men walk barefoot through a thornbush. The first has been pricked a hundred times and steps gently around the others. The second has soft shoes and tramples through — the cries he hears below his feet are abstractions to him. Empathy is a wound that has learned its lesson.

Stories
Yudhiṣṭhira's reluctance to rule

After the Kurukṣetra war Yudhiṣṭhira refused to take the throne. He had seen the cost — his own kin slaughtered, women widowed, children orphaned — and he could not bear to inflict any future suffering even by the legitimate exercise of kingly daṇḍa.

Kṛṣṇa, Bhīṣma, and Vyāsa had to instruct him at length (Śānti-parva, Anuśāsana-parva) precisely because his ātma-aupamya had become so sharp it threatened the rāja-dharma needed to protect dharma itself. SB 10.10.14's principle made flesh, and its limit also addressed: empathy must be channeled by śāstra, not run wild.

📝 My note

Source: vedabase.io

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