sa Ätmany utthitam manyum
ÄtmajÄyÄtmanÄ prabhuḥ
aśīśamad yathÄ vahniá¹
sva-yonyÄ vÄriṇÄtma-bhūḥ
saḥ - he; Ätmani - within himself; utthitam - risen; manyum - anger; Ätma-jÄya - toward his son; ÄtmanÄ - by his own intelligence; prabhuḥ - the lord; aśīśamat - subdued; yathÄ - just as; vahnim - fire; sva - itself; yonyÄ - whose origin; vÄriá¹‡Ä - by water; Ätma-bhūḥ - self-born BrahmÄ.
Though anger toward his son was now rising within his heart, Lord BrahmÄ was able to subdue it by applying his intelligence, in the same way that fire is extinguished by its own product, water.
Lord BrahmÄ is sometimes affected by his contact with the mode of passion. But because he is Ädi-kavi, the firstborn and foremost learned scholar in the universe, when anger begins to disturb his mind he can control it by means of discriminating self-examination. In this instance he reminded himself that Bhá¹›gu was his son. Thus in this verse Åšukadeva GosvÄmÄ« draws the analogy that BrahmÄ’s own expansion (his son) served to put out his anger just as water, which originally evolved from elemental fire in the primeval creation, puts out a fire.
