Bhaktivedanta VedaBase: Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 9.2.9

taḿ śaśāpa kulācāryaḥ

kṛtāgasam akāmataḥ

na kṣatra-bandhuḥ śūdras tvaḿ

karmaṇā bhavitāmunā

SYNONYMS

tam — him (Pṛṣadhra); śaśāpa — cursed; kula-ācāryaḥ — the family priest, Vasiṣṭha; kṛta-āgasam — because of committing the great sin of killing a cow; akāmataḥ — although he did not want to do it; na — not; kṣatra-bandhuḥ — the family member of a kṣatriya; śūdraḥ tvam — you have behaved like a śūdra; karmaṇā — therefore by your fruitive reaction; bhavitā — you shall become a śūdra; amunā — because of killing the cow.

TRANSLATION

Although Pṛṣadhra had committed the sin unknowingly, his family priest, Vasiṣṭha, cursed him, saying, "In your next life you shall not be able to become a kṣatriya. Instead, you shall take birth as a śūdra because of killing the cow."

PURPORT

It appears that Vasiṣṭha was not free from tamo-guṇa, the mode of ignorance. As the family priest or spiritual master of Pṛṣadhra, Vasiṣṭha should have taken Pṛṣadhra's offense very lightly, but instead Vasiṣṭha cursed him to become a śūdra. It is the duty of a family priest not to curse a disciple but to give him relief through the performance of some sort of atonement. Vasiṣṭha, however, did just the opposite. Therefore Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura says that he was durmati; in other words, his intelligence was not very good.

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His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, Founder Ācārya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness