यथा मृतस्तथा जीवन्यथासति तथा सति।
यस्यैष बुद्धिलाभः स्यात्परितप्येत केन सः॥
yathā mṛtas tathā jīvan yathāsati tathā sati
yasyaiṣa buddhi-lābhaḥ syāt paritapyeta kena saḥ
yathā = just as he would deal with; mṛtaḥ = the dead; tathā = to deal with; jīvan = the living; yathā = and to deal with; asati = non-existent; tathā = just as he would deal with; sati = existent; yasya eṣaḥ buddhi-lābhaḥ syāt = if one has attained the intelligence; paritapyeta = suffer in anguish; kena = why would; saḥ = he.
“If one has attained the intelligence to deal with the living just as he would deal with the dead and to deal with the existent just as he would deal with the non-existent, why would he suffer in anguish?1
1 A commentator has superimposed the impersonalism of Māyāvāda here. The basic teaching of paṇḍitāḥ samadarśinaḥ has nothing to do with such baseless doctrines. Searching for clues to Śaṅkarācārya’s Māyāvāda in Vālmīki’s Rāmāyaṇa is as useless as searching for the eggs of a horse.
Rāma had told Bharata that Bharata had spoken to Rāma in distress due to being separated from Their father and so on. Here Bharata states that there is no question of Him being in such distress.
Just as a dead person is not an object of hatred, a living person is also [not meant to be an object of hatred] and just as a non-existing object is not an object of love, an existing object is also [not meant to be an object of love]. Why would a person who has attained such intelligence suffer in anguish? He would not. Bharata implies here that He does not have even a bit of distress [about Daśaratha’s death].
Anticipating that Rāmacandra might ask, “Then why are You speaking sorrowfully?” Bharata states in the next verse that [He laments] only because of His inability to tolerate Rāma’s calamity.