Text 22
tasyāyam anayasyāsīt
parebhyo vaḥ parābhavaḥ
prakṣīṇebhyaḥ sva-vairibhyaḥ
samṛddhānāṁ ca yat surāḥ
tasya — that; ayam — this; anayasya — of your ungrateful activity; āsīt — was; parebhyaḥ — by others; vaḥ — of all of you; parābhavaḥ — the defeat; prakṣīṇebhyaḥ — although they were weak; sva-vairibhyaḥ — by your own enemies, who were previously defeated by you; samṛddhānām — being yourselves very opulent; ca — and; yat — which; surāḥ — O demigods.
Because of your misbehavior toward Bṛhaspati, you have been defeated by the demons. My dear demigods, since the demons were weak, having been defeated by you several times, how else could you, who were so advanced in opulence, be defeated by them?
The devas are celebrated for fighting with the asuras perpetually. In such fights the asuras were always defeated, but this time the demigods were defeated. Why? The reason, as stated here, was that they had offended their spiritual master. Their impudent disrespect of their spiritual master was the cause of their defeat by the demons. As stated in the śāstras, when one disrespects a respectable superior, one loses his longevity and the results of his pious activities, and in this way one is degraded.