Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 11.7.62
एकदा जग्मतुस्तासामन्नार्थं तौ कुटुम्बिनौ ।
परित: कानने तस्मिन्नर्थिनौ चेरतुश्चिरम् ॥ ६२ ॥
ekadā jagmatus tāsām
[ekadaa jagmatus taasaam]
annārthaṁ tau kuṭumbinau
[annaartham tau kutumbinau]
paritaḥ kānane tasminn
[paritah kaanane tasminn]
arthinau ceratuś ciram
[arthinau cheratush chiram]
Word-for-word
ekadā
—
once
jagmatuḥ
—
they went
tāsām
—
of the children
anna
—
food
artham
—
for the sake of
tau
—
the two
kuṭumbinau
—
heads of the family
paritaḥ
—
all around
kānane
—
in the forest
tasmin
—
that
arthinau
—
anxiously searching
ceratuḥ
—
they wandered
ciram
—
far away.
Blended reading (Sanskrit + English inline)
ekadā jagmatus tāsām
ekadā
once
jagmatuḥ
they went
tāsām
of the children
annārthaṁ tau kuṭumbinau
anna
food
artham
for the sake of
tau
the two
kuṭumbinau
heads of the family
paritaḥ kānane tasminn
paritaḥ
all around
kānane
in the forest
tasmin
that
arthinau ceratuś ciram
arthinau
anxiously searching
ceratuḥ
they wandered
ciram
far away.
One day the two heads of the family went out to find food for the children. Being very anxious to feed their offspring properly, they wandered all over the forest for a long time.
Gauḍīya Ācāryas
Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura
Gauḍīya
Translation
One day, the two heads of the family went out to find food for the children. Being very anxious to feed their offspring properly, they wandered all over the forest for a long time.
Personal Guidance
Even devoted parents, anxious to feed their young, wander the forest of saṁsāra endlessly — provision-seeking without Kṛṣṇa never ends.
Practical Applications
- Notice the hours today spent "wandering the forest" for family provisions, and consciously offer that labor to Kṛṣṇa before you begin.
- Refuse the lie that one more promotion or purchase will finally settle the household — name what you are still chasing and bring it to your morning sādhana.
- Feed your dependents bodily, but also feed them spiritually today: a verse, a prasāda offering, a story of Kṛṣṇa at the meal.
Reflection Questions
- Where has my anxiety to provide for those I love quietly displaced my remembrance of the One who actually feeds us all?
- What forest am I wandering in, telling myself it is duty, when in truth it is attachment dressed as responsibility?
For Each Age Group
youth
- Notice the pressure you already feel to "secure the future" — the placement, the package, the partner — and name it as the same forest your parents are walking, before it claims you too.
- Refuse the story that sādhana belongs to a later, settled version of you; place japa and one Bhāgavatam verse into your day now, while the forest is still small.
- Speak to your parents this week with gratitude for the forest-wandering they have done for you, and ask them one real question about how they hold Kṛṣṇa inside that effort.
householder
- Sit with your spouse this week and audit honestly which provision-pursuits are needs and which are anxieties — drop or downsize one, and reclaim the time for joint sādhana.
- Build a fixed family rhythm — morning verse, evening offering, a weekly story of Kṛṣṇa with the children — that no career season is allowed to override.
- Each time you feel the familiar pull to wander further into the forest for one more bit of security, pause and offer that very feeling to Kṛṣṇa before you act on it.
senior
- Look back honestly on the decades of provision-seeking and forgive yourself for the wandering, then commit the years ahead to the sādhana you kept postponing.
- Tell your grown children and grandchildren plainly that the deepest inheritance you wish to leave is remembrance of Kṛṣṇa, and begin transmitting it in small, regular ways now.
- Loosen your grip on the household's logistics — let the next generation carry the forest — and let your remaining strength go to hearing, chanting, and serving devotees.
Common Pitfalls
- Reading this verse as a condemnation of family life rather than as a warning against parenting performed in forgetfulness of Kṛṣṇa.
- Romanticizing renunciation and despising the householder's labor, instead of seeing that the same labor offered to Kṛṣṇa becomes bhakti.
- Treating "providing" as an unending project, so that sādhana is always postponed until the children, the house, the savings are "settled."
Discussion Prompts
- Share a recent week when provision-seeking for your family crowded out your sādhana — was the anxiety proportionate to the actual need, or inflated?
- Where in your life are you a kuṭumbī wandering "all over the forest for a long time" — and what would it look like to stop wandering without abandoning your duty?
- Discuss honestly: is feeding our children spiritually treated with the same urgency as feeding them materially, or does one quietly always win?
Role Play
One partner has just been offered a higher-paying job that demands much longer hours and travel; the other senses the family's sādhana and time with the children is already thin. Role-play the conversation between them, with a third student as a senior Vaiṣṇava friend they have invited over for counsel — surface where provision ends and anxious wandering begins.
Objections & Responses
- Providing well for one's family is a sacred duty — calling that "wandering the forest" sounds like spiritual contempt for ordinary working parents.
The verse does not condemn the work; it exposes the mood. A gṛhastha who earns and feeds in remembrance of Kṛṣṇa is performing bhakti, not wandering. The forest here is not the job — it is the forgetfulness, the endless "a little more and then I will turn to Kṛṣṇa" that keeps the soul circling for lifetimes. - This sounds like a pre-modern worry. With stable jobs and supermarkets, parents today are not wandering a forest for food — the image does not apply.
The forest in the Bhāgavatam is saṁsāra itself, not a literal woodland. Replace forest with commute, inbox, market, school-admissions race — the anxious circling is identical, and often longer. The outer scenery changes; the kuṭumbī's restless heart, untethered from Kṛṣṇa, does not.
My note
Source: vedabase.io