अथोताप्याहुः साम नो बतेति यत्साधु भवति साधु बतेत्येव तदाहुरसाम नो बतेति यदसाधु भवत्यसाधु बतेत्येव तदाहुः ॥ २.१.३ ॥
athotāpyāhuḥ sāma no bateti yatsādhu bhavati sādhu batetyeva tadāhurasāma no bateti yadasādhu bhavatyasādhu batetyeva tadāhuḥ || 2.1.3 ||
3. Then when something good happens, people say, ‘It is sāma for us,’ when they mean that it is good for them. But when something bad happens, people say, ‘It is asāma for us,’ when they mean that it is bad for them.
Word-for-word explanation:
Atha uta api, then also; āhuḥ, [people] say; naḥ bata sāma iti, it is sāma for us; yat sādhu bhavati, that which is good; sādhu bata id eva tat āhuḥ, the words mean that what is good has happened; naḥ bata asāma iti, [similarly, people say] it is asāma for us; yat asādhu bhavati, that which is bad; asādhu bata id eva tat āhuḥ, they mean to say that what is bad has happened.
Commentary:
The words sādhu and sāma are synonymous. When people say, ‘We have had something sāma happen,’ they mean that they have had something sādhu happen. Both the words mean the same thing: good, beautiful, fair, and so on.