122 Sri Caitanya-caritamrta [Madhya-lila, Ch. 5

TRANSLATION

The younger brahmana replied: ‘‘My dear sir, please hear me. You are say-
ing something very unusual. Such a thing never happens.

TEXT 22
Targa Sfa—faoi-watfa-eiate |
alfa agetia, oa a-Faasi-la 22 1

mahda-kulina tumi —vidya-dhandadi-pravina
ami akulina, ara dhana-vidya-hina

SYNONYMS
mahd-kulina—highly aristocratic; tumi—you; vidya—education; dhana-adi—
riches; pravina—enriched; ami—1; akulina—not aristocratic; ara—and; dhana-
vidya-hina—without any wealth and education.

TRANSLATION

“You are a most aristocratic family man, well educated and very rich. | am
not at all aristocratic, and | am without a decent education and have no
wealth.

PURPORT

Due to pious activities, one can be enriched by four opulences: one may obtain
birth in an aristocratic family, become highly educated, become very beautiful, or
get a sufficient quantity of riches. These are symptoms of pious activities per-
formed in one’s past life. In India it is still current for an aristocratic family never to
consider a marriage with a common family. Though the caste may be the same, to
maintain the aristocracy such marriages are rejected. No poor man will dare marry
the daughter of a rich man. Because of this, when the elderly brahmana offered
the young brahmana his daughter, the young brahmana did not believe that it
would be possible to marry her. Therefore he asked the elderly brahmana why he
was proposing something unprecedented (asambhava). It was unheard of for an
aristocratic person to offer his daughter to a person who was both uneducated
and poor.

TEXT 23

apimia-tia arf al 2S Cora |
SRALSI tia COMMA CHal-TaBla | VON
