688 Srimad-Bhagavatam [Canto 1, Ch. 13
supreme authority. No friend, no children, no father, no brother, no state
and no one else can protect a person who is not protected by the Supreme
Lord. One should, therefore, seek the protection of the Supreme Lord, for
the human form of life is meant for seeking that protection. He was warned
of his precarious conditions more and more by the following words.
TEXT 22
we: gta afatt AMWaITS Arend |
fasitet ardt aeerfza: AUT: SHAT RII
andhah puraiva vadhiro
manda-prajfias ca sampratam
visirna danto mandagnih
saragah kapham udvahan

andhah—blind; pura—from the beginning; eva—certainly ; vadhirah—hard
of hearing; manda-prajfiah—memory shortened; ca—and; sampratam—
recently; visirnah—loosened; dantah—teeth; manda-agnih—liver action
decreased; saragah— with sound; kapham—coughing with mucus; udvahan—
coming out.

TRANSLATION

You have been blind from your very birth, and recently you have
become hard of hearing. Your memory is shortened, and your intelligence
is disturbed. Your teeth are loose, your liver is defective, and you are
coughing up mucus.

PURPORT

The symptoms of old age, which had already developed in Dhrtarastra,
were all one after another pointed out to him as warning that death was
nearing very quickly, and still he was foolishly carefree about his future.
The signs pointed out by Vidura in the body of Dhrtarastra were signs
of apaksaya, or dwindling of the material body before the last stroke of
death. The body is born, it develops, stays, creates other bodies, dwindles
and then vanishes. But foolish men want to make a permanent settlement
of the perishable body and think that their estate, children, society,
