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.