एहि पश्य शरीराणि मुनीनां भावितात्मनाम्।
हतानां राक्षसैर्घोरैर्बहूनां बहुधा वने॥
ehi paśya śarīrāṇi munīnāṁ bhāvitātmanām
hatānāṁ rākṣasair ghorair bahūnāṁ bahudhā vane
ehi = come; paśya = and see; śarīrāṇi = the bodies; munīnām = sages; bhāvita-ātmanām = who had meditatedle on their selves; hatānām = [these bodies] were destroyed; rākṣasaiḥ = rākṣasas; ghoraiḥ = by terrible; bahūnām = of the many; bahudhā = in many ways; vane = in the forest.
Come and see the bodies of the many sages who had meditated on their selves.1 [These bodies] were destroyed by terrible rākṣasas in the forest in many ways.
1 It appears that these sages were engaging in jñāna-yoga at that point in time, as a precursor to their engagement in bhakti-yoga. Jñāna-yoga has been well defined by Śrī Yāmunācārya as meditation on one’s pure self by those who have conquered their senses: jñāna-yogo jita-svāntaiḥ pariśuddhātmani sthitiḥ (Gītārtha-saṅgraha 23). One can optionally engage in jñāna-yoga before coming to bhakti-yoga, but engagement in jñāna-yoga (and even karma-yoga) involves giving some amount of one’s daily time to engagement in nava-vidha-bhakti. Interested readers can read Śrī Yāmunācārya’s Gītārtha-saṅgraha for further details. Śrī Vedānta-deśika has given a lucid commentary on it.
1 Rāmāyaṇa-bhāva-dīpa: bahudhā khaḍgādi-nānā-śastreṇa.
destroyed in many ways—they had been cut, broken, eaten up, etc.
They elaborate on this in the next verse.
GLOSS. Bahudhā indicates [that the bodies of these sages were destroyed by the terrible rākṣasas] using swords and other weapons.1