qMonk literal translation — draft, pending review
Without you there is no offering made into the fire, and nobody has clothes to wear.
Food and drink, and enough of both to spread out for guests — all of it comes from you.
Yajña is the fire offering, the oldest and most formal rite in the tradition — the thing a household saves up for. And the verse points out what every family knows and most religious poetry declines to mention: a yajña takes ghee, grain, wood, cloth for the priests, food for whoever comes. No abundance, no rite.
This is not cynicism. Whether or not the poet meant it as a rebuke, the verse declines a ranking that devotional literature often takes for granted — the spiritual placed above the material, with the material quietly paying for it. The lamp waved in front of the goddess was bought with money. The sanctity and the shopping are not in different departments.
Keep the word vaibhava. It is not "food and drink" but the splendour of them — plenty, laid out, enough for guests. Indian hospitality's whole aesthetic sits in that word, and it is a religious value here, not a worldly compromise.
Some sung texts read yajña nā hotā for yajña na hote; the line is sung both ways.
Think of a celebration you love. Who did the ordinary work that made it possible?
qMonk literal translation — draft, pending review·Devanagari checked against two printings·Draft — awaiting reviewer·How these texts were made