The Thread and the Flower Garland
The story about the importance of a good company
Let’s give this one a try:
guṇavajjanasaṁsargād yāti nīco’pi gauravam |
puṣpamālāprasaṅgena sūtraṁ śirasi dhāryate ||
☝️The First Part
Translating word by word…
👉🏻 guṇavajjanasaṁsargād
A compound word: gunavat + jana + saṁsargād
guṇavat → someone endovered with good qualities, virtuous
jana → a man
saṁsarga → conjunction
Word ending ād refers to the ablative case, which means the reason of something. So the whole word is like “because of the conjunction with a virtuous man”
👉🏻 yāti
Means “he comes to something”
👉🏻 nīco’pi
Two words are actually here: nīcaḥ + api:
nīcaḥ is a “person of a mean quality”.
api means “even”.
👉🏻 gauravam
The word gaurava means importance, respectability, high value.
We could read this as an opposite to nīcaḥ (see above).
So the whole first part is:
Even the mean person comes to importance because of the conjunction with a virtuous man.
✌️The Second Part
Okay, the “wise part” of this verse is done. Keep reading to see a beautiful example.
👉🏻 puṣpamālāprasaṅgena
The long one…
puṣpamālā → a garland of flower
prasaṅga → a link or connection
Word ending ena refers to instrumental case, so the long word is “through the connection with a garland of flower”
👉🏻 sūtraṁ
Simple — a thread 〰️
👉🏻 śirasi
śiras is a skull or a head.
This is a locative, meaning “on the head”
👉🏻 dhāryate
Means “is located”, or “lies”, or “resides at”.
This verb is used in a special form (called causative) which adds a subtle meaning, that something is forced to be located somewhere.
Oka-a-a-y:
The thread lies on the head through the connection with a garland of flower.
🤷♂️ WTF ?
Let’s look at this again:
Even the mean person comes to importance because of the conjunction with a virtuous man.
The thread lies on the head through the connection with a garland of flower.
The thread itself has no meaning — it’s just a thread. But it gets a privilege to be on someone’s head because it’s connected with a garland of beautiful flowers.
The same happens to people: the mean ones get a level-up from conjunction with important ones.
🎓 So wear beautiful garlands and keep yourself close to a good people.