Verses 400–409

400. Reading, reading, reading still reading and still reading. Reading and reading, reading, some reading yet he cannot read so as to discern the great secret.

401. Who are those we everywhere term wife and husband. If thou will (take the trouble to) carefully view them, the truth is evident; but no one can see the joints of puppets (lit. skin images).

402. Take cow's butter and boil it well, mingle vegetables with it (branchless fruits). It is tasteless. The noblest of tastes is that of beatitude.

403. When we are born in the womb of our mother, at first, we had not clothing, nor shall have it at our latter end. Is not it then a joke for us to wear clothing in our intermediate life?

404. Like as a dog while hunting for bran that falls in with a heap of rice seizes it; thus does the wealth of the merchant fall to the lot of the hard and the cruel,

405. The Vaishnavites are saws in the assembly of kings (causing dissension). These are the chief gamblers of gamblers. They know not counsel but are swift in their eagerness for wealth.

406. The vile, leaves the man of worth and lauds the vile? Every man praises those who resemble him (asinus asinum fricat). Can a block give sense to a beam?

407. Why should a pearled tire (papita) be given to shaven widow instead of to a wife possessed of all charms? Why should a lame horse have a tasselled saddle.

408. Those men in the world who are faithful (satya) they shall also obtain wisdom worthily. When faith and wisdom are expired, a man becomes a Brahmin, twice born. What hath he who has attained to do with learning. (The poet evidently had a double meaning, sneering at Brahmins.)

409. Taking fire in their hands yet scoffiing at God, the Brahmins have become debased; wandering in many diverse paths, all the Brahmins are ruined.