किं न प्रतीक्षसेऽस्माकं गृहान् बलिभुजो यथा ॥१६॥
Ätma-vá¹›ttam avijñÄya
katthase bahu bhiká¹£uki
kiá¹ na pratÄ«ká¹£ase 'smÄkaá¹
gá¹›hÄn balibhujo yathÄ
Ätma-vá¹›ttam - one's own position; avijñÄya - without understanding; katthase - you are talking madly; bahu - so much; bhiká¹£uki - beggar; kim - whether; na - not; pratÄ«ká¹£ase - you wait; asmÄkam - our; gá¹›hÄn - at the house; balibhujaḥ - crows; yathÄ - like.
You beggar, since you don’t understand your position, why should you unnecessarily talk so much? Don’t all of you wait at our house, depending on us for your livelihood like crows?
Crows have no independent life; they fully depend on the remnants of foodstuffs thrown by householders into the garbage tank. Therefore, because a brÄhmaṇa depends on his disciples, when Åšarmiá¹£á¹hÄ was heavily rebuked by DevayÄnÄ« she charged DevayÄnÄ« with belonging to a family of crowlike beggars. It is the nature of women to fight verbally at even a slight provocation. As we see from this incident, this has been their nature for a long, long time.
