Question: I am interested in Srila Prabhupada’s translation of the seventh verse of the Siksastakam prayers. His early translation (Adi, Chapter 7) has a “twelve years or more” component, and I wonder why. Is it somehow in the Sanskrit?
Later in the Cc, where the actual Siksastakam occurs, it is translated differently.
See both versions below:
CC Adi 7.81, Purport:
Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu prays in His Siksastaka:
yugayitam nimesena caksusa pravrsayitam sunyayitam jagat sarvam govinda-virahena me
TRANSLATION “O Govinda! Feeling Your separation, I am considering a moment to be like twelve years or more. Tears are flowing from my eyes like torrents of rain, and I am feeling all vacant in the world in Your absence.”
Antya 20.39
yugayita nimesena caksusa pravrsayitam
sunyayita jagat sarva. govinda-virahena me
TRANSLATION “‘My Lord Govinda, because of separation from You, I consider even a moment a great millennium. Tears flow from My eyes like torrents of rain, and I see the entire world as void.’
Answer by Romapada Swami:
With assistance from Sanskrit scholars, here is one reply.
Monier-Williams dictionary says that a “yuga” can mean “a period or astronomical cycle of 5 or 6 years.” Yugaitam — the word we find in the Siksastakam verse — refers to more than one yuga, and so a couple of yugas is more than 12 years.
Another meaning of yuga is “millenium” or “age.” A yuga can also mean an unlimited amount of time.
