Now a child for a while and then a youth of erotic ways, a destitute now for a while and then very wealthy, just like an actor, man makes at the end of his role—when diseased in all limbs by age and wrinkled all over the body—his exit behind the scene that veils the abode of Yama (death).Other translations are available on Shreevatsa's very useful web site on Bhartṛhari.
"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
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Wednesday, June 14, 2023
One Man in His Time Plays Many Parts
Bhartṛhari, The Vairāgya-śatakam: Or, The Hundred Verses on Renunciation, 2nd ed. (Mayavati: The Advaita Ashram, 1921), p. 32 (number 50):