Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 11.8.19
जिह्वयातिप्रमाथिन्या जनो रसविमोहित: ।
मृत्युमृच्छत्यसद्बुद्धिर्मीनस्तु बडिशैर्यथा ॥ १९ ॥
jihvayāti-pramāthinyā
[jihvayaati-pramaathinyaa]
jano rasa-vimohitaḥ
[jano rasa-vimohitah]
mṛtyum ṛcchaty asad-buddhir
[mrityum richchaty asad-buddhir]
mīnas tu baḍiśair yathā
[meenas tu badishair yathaa]
Word-for-word
jihvayā
—
by the tongue
ati-pramāthinyā
—
which is extremely disturbing
janaḥ
—
a person
rasa-vimohitaḥ
—
bewildered by attraction to taste
mṛtyum
—
death
ṛcchati
—
achieves
asat
—
useless
buddhiḥ
—
whose intelligence
mīnaḥ
—
the fish
tu
—
indeed
baḍiśaiḥ
—
by the hooks
yathā
—
just as.
Blended reading (Sanskrit + English inline)
jihvayāti-pramāthinyā
jihvayā
by the tongue
ati-pramāthinyā
which is extremely disturbing
jano rasa-vimohitaḥ
janaḥ
a person
rasa-vimohitaḥ
bewildered by attraction to taste
mṛtyum ṛcchaty asad-buddhir
mṛtyum
death
ṛcchati
achieves
asat
useless
buddhiḥ
whose intelligence
mīnas tu baḍiśair yathā
mīnaḥ
the fish
tu
indeed
baḍiśaiḥ
by the hooks
yathā
just as.
Just as a fish, incited by the desire to enjoy his tongue, is fatally trapped on the fisherman’s hook, similarly, a foolish person is bewildered by the extremely disturbing urges of the tongue and thus is ruined.
Purport
The fisherman places meaty bait on a sharp hook and easily attracts the unintelligent fish, who is greedy to enjoy its tongue. Similarly, people are mad after gratifying their tongues and lose all discrimination in their eating habits. For momentary gratification they construct huge slaughterhouses and kill millions of innocent creatures, and by inflicting such atrocious suffering they prepare a ghastly future for themselves. But even if one eats only the foods authorized in the Vedas, there is still danger. One may eat too sumptuously and then the artificially stuffed belly will create pressure on the sexual organs. Thus one will fall down into the lower modes of nature and commit sinful activities that lead to the death of one’s spiritual life. From the fish one should carefully learn the real dangers involved in gratifying the tongue.
— A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda
Gauḍīya Ācāryas
Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura
Gauḍīya
Translation
Just as a fish, incited by the desire to enjoy his tongue, is fatally trapped on the fisherman’s hook, similarly, a foolish person is bewildered by the extremely disturbing urges of the tongue and thus meets his death.
Attraction to material taste is a cause of obstacles. This he learned from the fish. Man, bewildered by his tongue which is agitating and difficult to control (atipramāthinyā) attains death. The fish attains death by the hook with tasty bait.
Related lectures
Personal Guidance
Like a fish hooked by bait, the unintelligent are dragged toward ruin by the agitated tongue — discipline the jihvā or it will eat your spiritual life.
Practical Applications
- Before your next meal, offer the food to Kṛṣṇa as prasāda and eat only what serves sādhana, not what excites the tongue.
- Refuse to participate in flesh-eating today, recognizing that tongue-pleasure paid for by another's suffering prepares a ghastly future for yourself.
- Notice when you reach for a second helping out of rasa-greed rather than need, and stop — overeating swells the belly and drags the senses downward.
Reflection Questions
- Where in my eating and speaking has the tongue quietly become the fisherman's hook, pulling me away from Kṛṣṇa one bite or one comment at a time?
- If I traced my last serious fall in sādhana backward, would I find an unguarded tongue at the start of that chain?
For Each Age Group
youth
- Before opening a food-delivery app or a snack drawer late at night, pause and ask whether you are actually hungry or just chasing a rasa — and choose water and japa instead even once this week.
- Refuse to let peer pressure at hostels, hangouts, or canteens drag you into non-offerable food; carry prasāda or simple home food and be unembarrassed about it.
- Watch how short-form food content and mukbang-style videos train your tongue to crave — unfollow a few of those accounts today and replace them with kīrtana or class audio.
householder
- Set a family rule that meat, fish, and eggs do not enter the kitchen, and explain to children plainly why — connecting tongue-discipline to the slaughterhouse economy this verse foresaw.
- Cook and serve smaller, sattvic, offered meals at home rather than frequent restaurant outings, so the household budget and the family's senses are both protected from rasa-greed.
- When entertaining guests or closing business deals over food, take a modest plate and stop on time — do not let hospitality or networking become the bait that overfeeds and dulls your evening sādhana.
senior
- Use this stage of life to deliberately simplify the palate — fewer dishes, less salt, less sugar, more prasāda — recognizing that an old body chasing strong flavors is the fish still nibbling the hook.
- Speak less, and when you speak to children and grandchildren, let the tongue serve hari-kathā and honest counsel rather than complaint, criticism, or nostalgia for past enjoyments.
- Mentor a younger devotee or family member specifically on tongue-control — eating, drinking, and speaking — passing on what you have learned about how this one sense quietly ruined or saved your spiritual life.
Common Pitfalls
- Treating this verse as merely a dietary rule about vegetarianism while ignoring the deeper warning about rasa-vimohitaḥ — the bewilderment of seeking flavors as the goal.
- Assuming that because the food is offered and Vedic-authorized, quantity no longer matters — Prabhupāda warns that even sumptuous prasāda overstuffs the belly and inflames the lower senses.
- Reducing the tongue's danger to taste alone and forgetting its other function — speech — so that gossip, joking, and careless words go uncorrected.
Discussion Prompts
- Share one food or flavor you know agitates your sādhana, and discuss honestly why you have not yet given it up.
- Where does our community draw the line between honoring prasāda and indulging the tongue under a spiritual label — and do we agree on where that line sits?
- If the fish cannot see the hook inside the bait, what are the hooks hidden inside the foods, restaurants, and food-content we consume daily?
Role Play
Two devotees are at a wedding reception. The table is full of opulent preparations, some offered, some not, and the host is personally urging a second and third plate. One devotee wants to eat freely, citing that it is a Vaiṣṇava festival; the other wants to take a small plate and stop. Play out the conversation between them — and then with the insistent host — using this verse to guide the response without becoming self-righteous.
Objections & Responses
- This is just ancient asceticism — modern nutrition science says enjoying food is healthy, and guilt around eating is harmful.
The verse is not against eating or even against pleasure; it is against being rasa-vimohitaḥ, bewildered by flavor to the point of losing discrimination. A Gauḍīya does not eat with guilt — he eats Kṛṣṇa-prasāda with gratitude and a limit. The fish is not condemned for being hungry; it is hooked because it could not distinguish bait from food. Modern overeating, slaughterhouse industries, and food addictions are exactly the hook Prabhupāda is pointing to. - Singling out the tongue feels arbitrary — why not the eyes or the mind, which seem more powerful?
Śāstra and Prabhupāda repeatedly identify the tongue as the most difficult sense to control and the gateway sense — once it is satisfied with prasāda and kṛṣṇa-kathā, the other senses fall in line; once it is indulged, the belly swells, the genitals are inflamed, and the whole sensory apparatus follows downward. That is why this verse uses the fish, not a deer or a moth — the tongue's hook is the one almost no one sees coming.
My note
Source: vedabase.io