Text 80] Ramacandra Puri Criticizes the Lord 119

TEXT 79

Bia aes Ad fale ‘omen’ eifea
aafaty ‘fea? cq ‘afens’ otfarn uae 0

tara madhye pdrva-vidhi ‘prasarmsa’ chadiya
para-vidhi ‘ninda’ kare ‘balistha’ janiya

SYNONYMS

tara madhye—between the two; purva-vidhi—the former rule; prasamsa—
praising; chadiya—giving up; para-vidhi—the other rule; ninda—criticizing;
kare—does; balistha janiya—knowing it to be more prominent.

TRANSLATION

“Of the two rules, Ramacandra Puri obeys the first by abandoning praise,
but although he knows that the second is more prominent, he neglects it by
criticizing others.

PURPORT

The above-mentioned verse from Srimad-Bhagavatam gives two injunctions.
The first, called pdrva-vidhi, is that one should not praise, and the second, para-
vidhi, is that one should not criticize. As will be apparent from the following verse,
the injunction against praise is less important than the injunction against
blasphemy. One should carefully observe the para-vidhi, although one may
neglect the purva-vidhi. Thus the actual injunction is that one may praise but
should not criticize. This is called slesokti, or a statement having two meanings.
Ramacandra Puri, however, acted in just the opposite way, for he neglected the
para-vidhi but strictly observed the purva-vidhi. Since he avoided following the
principle of not criticizing, Rimacandra Puri broke both the rules.

TEXT 80

yeracarseay Vafaresaaty t vol

purva-parayor madhye para-vidhir balavan

SYNONYMS

purva-parayoh—the former and the latter; madhye—between; para-vidhih—
the latter rule; balavan—more prominent.
