bhaja govindaṃ bhaja govindaṃ
govindaṃ bhaja mūḍhamate |
samprāpte sannihite kāle
nahi nahi rakṣati ḍukṛṅkaraṇe ||
Worship Govinda
Worship Govinda
Worship Govinda oh fool!
The rules of grammar won't save you
When the death comes
The verb bhaj here could be translated as "to worship".
bhaj-a is an imperative form of the verb, which means a command or an advice: you worship.
govinda refers to a name of the god.
mūḍha-mati means someone silly(mūḍha)-minded(mati), or a fool.
mūḍha-mate is a vocative case. Translated as "oh fool".
samprāpta is translated as something being reached.
samprāpte is a locative case (in agreement with a word kāle below).
saṃ – nihita is translated as something being close or near.
saṃ – nihite is a locative case (in agreement with a word kāle below).
kāla means time. In particular the time of death.
kāle forms locative absolute which would be translated as "when the time of death ...".
In conjunction with samprāpte and sannihite that would give "when the time of death is close and is reached".
Or simply "when the death comes".
rakṣati comes from the verb root rakṣ (to save) and in conjunction with nahi is translated as "will not save".
ḍukṛṅkaraṇe is a quotation from the Dhatupatha text. The sentence describes the meaning of a verb root kṛ, and in this text is used as a metonymy for the grammar in general.