tulyāṃ tvadīya-maṇi-nūpura-śiñjitānām |
Gode tvam eva janani tvad-abhiṣṭavārhāṃ
vācaṃ prasanna-madhurāṃ mama saṃvidhehi || 3 ||
Godā!
You Yourself, o Mother, must arrange
my words to be
sweet and pleasing
worthy of Your praisenectar to the ears of Your beloved,
comparable to Your bejeweled anklets' tinkling.
Notes
I translate tvad-abhiṣṭavārhāṃ as "worthy of your praise", which is ambiguous in English: is Śrī Vedānta Deśika seeking the praise of Godā for his words, or does he intend to praise her through his words? Clearly the second meaning is intended, but the first is also possible based simply on the grammar. The phrase tvad-abhiṣṭavaḥ, meaning "your praise", can mean either "the praise that you perform" or "the praise that you receive". The Pāṇinian sutra "kartṛ-karmaṇoḥ kṛti" allows for it, pointing that a verbal noun can govern the use of the ṣaṣṭhī case either with the kartā (the agent of the verbal activity) or with the karman (the patient of the verbal activity).
Another difficulty translating this verse was in getting all the words that are in the dvitīyā (and thus modifying vācaṃ) to somehow fit together. In English this required the word order of the verse to be reversed almost entirely. This sadly affects the compactness of the original's imagery. The musicality of Godā's anklets delights the ears of Her beloved, Kṛṣṇa / Nārāyaṇa, and Deśika desires that Godā herself structure his words so that they may be just as pleasing to Kṛṣṇa's ears as Her own anklets.
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