Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 10.64.32
Blended reading (Sanskrit + English inline)
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durjaram
—
indigestible
Dur (hard) + jara (digestion, from √jṛ). The metaphor of consumption is precise — brāhmaṇa-property is food that cannot be metabolised by the consumer. The body it enters becomes diseased.
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brahma - svam
—
the property of a brāhmaṇa
Brahma (brāhmaṇa) + sva (one's own). The technical term running through the next several verses. Gauḍīya commentators emphasise: it includes anything a brāhmaṇa owns or has rightful claim to — not only ritual implements but cows, fields, gifts already made.
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agneḥ manāk api tejīyasaḥ
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even more potent than fire, even a little
Agni (fire) + manāk (slightly) + tejīyas (more powerful). Even one slightly more powerful than fire cannot digest a small portion. The grammar refuses any reading by which 'great kings' might be exempt: fire is the limit-case, and even fire fails.
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īśvara - māninām
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of those who presume themselves controllers
Īśvara (controller) + mānin (proud, self-considering). The exact diagnosis: rulers who imagine they are īśvara. Gauḍīyas read the chapter's whole engine as built on this single compound — false īśvara-bhāva is what makes brāhmaṇa-property attractive in the first place.
Even those made powerful by austerity, mystic yoga and so on cannot enjoy property stolen from a brāhmaṇa, and what to speak of others.
The property of a brahmana, even if tasted just a little, by theft or what not, cannot be enjoyed by even a person powerful as fire, with great sense of austerity.
Enjoying (stealing) a brāhmaṇa’s property produces great grief (durjaram) even for a person who can destroy sin by the power of his austerity or yoga (teīyasah). Bata indicates dismay. What to speak of the result for kings who cannot perform austerity or yoga, because of thinking themselves great. They will come to even greater grief. Or even enjoying a small portion of a brāhmaṇa’s property is indigestible for a person more powerful than fire.
Enjoying (stealing) a brāhmaṇa’s property produces great grief (durjaram). Bata indicates dismay. By thinking themselves controllers, kings become powerful. A great ascetic or jñānī, more powerful than fire, enjoying a brāhmaṇa’s property even a little is indigestible. What to speak of kings.
- Where am I treating something belonging to a saintly person as if it were freely available?
- How does Kṛṣṇa's warning recalibrate my use of resources connected to the holy?
Agni eats whatever is offered; even Agni finds brāhmaṇa-property hard to digest. The verse uses fire — the strongest digestive in the universe — as its measure, and finds even fire over-matched. What then of a king's belly?
My note
Source: vedabase.io