This aspirant has had in his youth to taste of glory either as a pious man, a dutiful son, a scholarly student, a brave warrior, or a lover of women. He appears to lament here that none of the fourfold aim of human life ( धर्मे, religious merit; अर्थ, wealth; काम, fulfilment of desires; and मोक्ष, final salvation ) has been pursued by ( him in the past with any the slightest success. Perhaps he means that that is best calculated to impress on his mind the vanity of all the ends of a householder's life. But this impression of vanity and consequent non-attachment may very well come, and come with perhaps greater completeness, to men who had the ability to succeed in life, and such men may not at all look back with any lingering regret on enjoyments they are going to leave behind, whether their harvest had been actually reaped by them or not. There is even some inconsistency in the ring of regret running through these stanzas. But the poet is here more concerned with dramatic effect than psychological precision.]
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वयं येभ्यो जाताश्चिरपरिचिता एव खलु ते |
48. Those from whom we were born, well, they are now on intimate footing with Eternity (long dead) ; those with whom we were brought up have also become objects of memory. Now (that we have become old) we are approaching
