Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 11.8.18
नृत्यवादित्रगीतानि जुषन् ग्राम्याणि योषिताम् ।
आसां क्रीडनको वश्य ऋष्यशृङ्गो मृगीसुत: ॥ १८ ॥
nṛtya-vāditra-gītāni
[nritya-vaaditra-geetaani]
juṣan grāmyāṇi yoṣitām
[jushan graamyaani yoshitaam]
āsāṁ krīḍanako vaśya
[aasaam kreedanako vashya]
ṛṣyaśṛṅgo mṛgī-sutaḥ
[rishyashringo mrigee-sutah]
Word-for-word
nṛtya
—
dancing
vāditra
—
musical performance
gītāni
—
songs
juṣan
—
cultivating
grāmyāni
—
related to sense gratification
yoṣitām
—
of women
āsām
—
of them
krīḍanakaḥ
—
a plaything
vaśyaḥ
—
fully controlled
ṛṣya-śṛṅgaḥ
—
the sage Ṛṣyaśṛṅga
mṛgī-sutaḥ
—
the son of a deer.
Blended reading (Sanskrit + English inline)
nṛtya-vāditra-gītāni
nṛtya
dancing
vāditra
musical performance
gītāni
songs
juṣan grāmyāṇi yoṣitām
juṣan
cultivating
grāmyāni
related to sense gratification
yoṣitām
of women
āsāṁ krīḍanako vaśya
āsām
of them
krīḍanakaḥ
a plaything
vaśyaḥ
fully controlled
ṛṣyaśṛṅgo mṛgī-sutaḥ
ṛṣya-śṛṅgaḥ
the sage Ṛṣyaśṛṅga
mṛgī-sutaḥ
the son of a deer.
Becoming attracted to the worldly singing, dancing and musical entertainment of beautiful women, even the great sage Ṛṣyaśṛṅga, the son of a deer, fell totally under their control, just like a pet animal.
Purport
Ṛṣyaśṛṅga was intentionally brought up by his father in an atmosphere of complete innocence. The father thought that if his son were never exposed to the sight of women he would always remain a perfect brahmacārī. But by chance the inhabitants of the neighboring kingdom, who were suffering from a long-term drought, received divine advice that rain would return to their kingdom only after the brāhmaṇa named Ṛṣyaśṛṅga stepped foot in it. Therefore they sent beautiful women to Ṛṣyaśṛṅga’s hermitage to entice him and bring him back with them. Since Ṛṣyaśṛṅga had never even heard about women, he easily fell for their trap.
The name Ṛṣyaśṛṅga indicates that the young sage was born with a deerlike horn growing out of his forehead. If like the deer a ṛṣi becomes attracted to sweet musical sounds promising sense gratification, then like the deer he is quickly vanquished. A thoughtful person should humbly take instruction from the deer, who is doomed by attraction to musical sense gratification.
— A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda
Gauḍīya Ācāryas
Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura
Gauḍīya
Translation
Becoming attracted to the worldly singing, dancing and musical entertainment of beautiful women, even the great sage Ṛṣyaśṛṅga, the son of Mṛgī, fell totally under their control, just like a pet animal.
An example of attachment to material songs is given.
Related lectures
Personal Guidance
Even a lifelong brahmacārī like Ṛṣyaśṛṅga was tamed like a pet by sweet sounds and beautiful company — guard against the entry-points of sense gratification.
Practical Applications
- Identify one form of music, video, or entertainment that softens your resolve, and refuse it for the next seven days.
- Notice the specific sense-channel — eyes, ears, taste — through which māyā most easily leads you, and place a concrete restraint there today.
- When sweet stimulation arises and pulls you, pause and remember Ṛṣyaśṛṅga the deer-son, then return to chanting or service.
Reflection Questions
- Which 'innocent' pleasure in my day is quietly domesticating me into māyā's pet, even as I imagine myself a sādhaka?
- Where am I trusting my untested renunciation, assuming that what I have never faced cannot conquer me?
For Each Age Group
youth
- Audit your phone for the one app, playlist, or feed that most reliably erodes your sādhana, and delete or block it before the end of today.
- When friends pull you toward a party, concert, or hangout that you know dulls your resolve, practice saying no once this week without explaining or apologizing.
- Replace one hour of background entertainment — music while studying, videos while eating — with chanting or reading, and notice what changes in your focus.
householder
- Look honestly at the entertainment your household consumes together — shows, music, social media — and remove one item that is quietly shaping your children's taste toward viṣaya.
- When a work or social event involves grāmya music and revelry, decide in advance how long you will stay and what you will not partake of, rather than trusting your willpower on the spot.
- Build one daily family ritual — ārati, kīrtana, reading aloud — that retrains the family's ears toward Kṛṣṇa-centered sweetness instead of marketplace sweetness.
senior
- Notice the 'harmless' indulgences — favorite songs, nostalgic films, rich food, long conversations — that you have justified in retirement, and ask which of them are tightening rather than loosening attachment.
- When mentoring younger devotees, share honestly the specific sense-pulls that domesticated you over a lifetime, so they do not repeat the pattern of Ṛṣyaśṛṅga's untested innocence.
- Spend the freed hours of this stage in hari-kīrtana, śravaṇa, and the company of devotees, deliberately starving the senses of grāmya input as you prepare for the body's final transition.
Common Pitfalls
- Assuming that because a sense object seems harmless or cultured, it cannot bind the heart — the verse shows even a sage was caught.
- Mistaking sheltered inexperience for actual vairāgya, and walking unguarded into situations one has never trained the senses against.
- Treating the warning as being only about gross lust, missing that subtler refined entertainments — music, art, ambience — work the same trap.
Discussion Prompts
- Share one form of 'sweet sound' in your life — a playlist, a show, a conversation circle — that you suspect is taming you, and discuss whether you would actually give it up.
- Ṛṣyaśṛṅga's father tried to protect him by complete shelter, and it failed — debate whether modern parents and teachers should shelter the young or deliberately train them under exposure.
- When does cultivated aesthetic enjoyment — classical music, fine food, beautiful surroundings — cross from sattva into viṣaya, and how do you tell in your own life?
Role Play
One student plays a sincere brahmacārī who insists he is 'past' the pull of entertainment because he never watches anything; another student plays a friend who hands him earbuds with a beautiful new song, saying it is just art. Play out the next two minutes of conversation, then swap roles and try again with the brahmacārī responding from the lesson of Ṛṣyaśṛṅga.
Objections & Responses
- This is an outdated, anti-woman verse — it blames women for a man's lack of self-control.
The verse is not blaming women; it is warning the practitioner about his own untrained senses. Śukadeva uses Ṛṣyaśṛṅga because he was the most innocent of men, so the lesson lands on the sādhaka — even a sinless sage was undone by his own attraction to sweet sounds. The mirror is held up to us, not to anyone else. - Music, dance, and beauty are gifts of Kṛṣṇa's energy — why treat them as enemies?
Music and beauty in Kṛṣṇa's service — kīrtana, deity worship, līlā-kathā — purify the heart. The verse warns specifically about grāmya, worldly entertainment aimed at sense gratification, which trains the senses to chase viṣaya. The same ear that thrills to a sensual song can be retrained to thrill to the holy name; the question is which one we are feeding.
My note
Source: vedabase.io