mahÄ-kulÄ«na tumi — vidyÄ-dhanÄdi-pravīṇa
Ämi akulÄ«na, Ära dhana-vidyÄ-hÄ«na

 mahÄ-kulÄ«na - highly aristocratic; tumi - you; vidyÄ - education; dhana-Ädi - riches; pravīṇa - enriched; Ämi - I; akulÄ«na - not aristocratic; Ära - and; dhana-vidyÄ-hÄ«na - without any wealth and education.


Text

“You are a most aristocratic family man, well educated and very rich. I am not at all aristocratic, and I am without a decent education and have no wealth.

Purport

Due to pious activities, one can be enriched by four opulences: one may obtain birth in an aristocratic family, become highly educated, become very beautiful or get a sufficient quantity of riches. These are symptoms of pious activities performed in one’s past life. In India it is still current for an aristocratic family never to consider a marriage with a common family. Though the caste may be the same, to maintain the aristocracy such marriages are rejected. No poor man will dare marry the daughter of a rich man. Because of this, when the elderly brÄhmaṇa offered the young brÄhmaṇa his daughter, the young brÄhmaṇa did not believe that it would be possible to marry her. Therefore he asked the elderly brÄhmaṇa why he was proposing something unprecedented (asambhava). It was unheard of for an aristocratic person to offer his daughter to a person who was both uneducated and poor.