152
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam
[Canto 2, Ch. 3]
śva—a dog; viḍ-varāha—the village hog who eats stool; uṣṭra—the camel; kharaiḥ—and by the asses; saṁstutaḥ—perfectly praised; puruṣaḥ—a person; paśuḥ—animal; na—never; yat—of him; karṇa—ear; patha—path; upetaḥ—reached; jātu—at any time; nāma—the holy name; gada-agrajaḥ—Lord Kṛṣṇa, the deliverer from all evils.
TRANSLATION
Men who are like dogs, hogs, camels and asses praise those men who never listen to the transcendental pastimes of Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, the deliverer from evils.
PURPORT
The general mass of people, unless they are trained systematically for a higher standard of life in spiritual values, are no better than the animals, and in this verse they have been particularly put on the level of the dogs, hogs, camels and asses. Modern university education practically prepares one to acquire a doggish mentality to accept the service of a greater master. Like the dogs, after finishing a so-called education, the so-called educated persons move from door to door with applications for some service, and mostly they are driven away, informed of no vacancy. As the dogs are negligible animals and serve the master faithfully for bits of bread, similarly one serves a master without sufficient rewards.
Persons who have no discrimination in the matter of foodstuff and who eat all sorts of rubbish are compared with the hogs. Hogs are very much attached to eating stools. So the stool is a kind of foodstuff for a particular type of animal. And even the stones are eatable by a particular type of animal or bird. But the human being is not meant for eating everything and anything, save grains, vegetables, fruits, milk, sugar, etc. Animal food is not meant for the human being. For chewing solid food, the human being has a particular type of teeth meant for cutting fruits and vegetables. The human being is endowed with two canine teeth as a concession for such persons who will eat animal food at any cost. It is known to everyone that one man's food is another man's poison. Human beings are expected to accept the remnants of food offered to Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, and the Lord accepts foodstuff from the categories of leaves, flowers, fruits, etc. (Bg. 9.26) No animal food is offered to the Lord, as prescribed by Vedic scriptures. Therefore, a human being is meant to eat a particular type of food. He should not imitate the animals to derive so-