SrI: SrImathE SatakOpAya nama: SrImathE rAmAnujAya nama: SrImath varavaramunayE nama:
SlOkam – Original
anthakAlE cha mAm Eva smaran mukthvA kaLEbaram |
ya: prayAthi sa madhbhAvam yAthi nAsthyathra samSaya: ||
word-by-word meaning
antha kAlE cha – even during the last moments (while attaining the desired results)
ya; – whosoever
mAm Eva smaran – meditating upon me (along with his desired results)
kaLEbaram thyakthvA prayAthi – sheds his body
sa: – he
madhbhAvam yAthi – attains my state;
athra – in this
samSaya: na asthi – no doubt
Simple Translation
Whosover sheds his body meditating upon me (along with his desired results) even during the last moments (while attaining the desired results), attains my state; no doubt in this.
Rendering based on ALkoNdavilli gOvindhAchArya swAmy’s English translation of gIthA bhAshyam
‘Whoso, at the hour of death, meditating on Me alone, casts off his mortal coil, attains unto My state. No doubt is there about this.’
This meditation (at time of death) is also common to all the three classes of votaries (or aspirants).
He who, when his end approaches, has Me alone in his remembrance, and thus departs from the body, becomes like unto Me.
Like unto Me (madbhāva)=like unto. My nature. Whatsoever image of Me is vividly present in his imagination at time of death, that he becomes, as in the case of Ādi-bharata[4. See Vish: pur: ii-13-32, 33. Another name of this king-saint is Jada-bharata. He died, watched by the deer, ‘with tears in its eyes, like a son mourning for his father; and he himself, as he expired, cast his eyes upon the animal, and thought of nothing else, being wholly occupied with one idea. In consequence of this predominant feeling at such a season, he was born again in the Jambumarga forest, as a deer, with the faculty of recollecting his former a life’. H.H. Wilson. Also Bhāgavata ‘mṛiyaśarīram avāpa’ V-8-24.] and others, who incarnated in the forms of animals etc., by reason of such images having prominently been present in their thoughts at their last moments.
That whatsoever be the image present in the last thought of the meditator, that he becomes, is further elucidated;—
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