"samsara" meaning "life"

[George Hart]

By the way, the notion that a family binds a man to samsaram is  
eloquently proclaimed by one of the greatest poems of Indian  
literature, Purananuru 191 written by Ooreezuzavar about 1900 years  
ago.  This poem was a favorite of A. K. Ramanujan's, and he loved to  
quote it.  I don't have his wonderful translation at hand -- here is  
the one Heifetz and I did:

Surely as if someone were hunting you across the breadth
of a white salt-flat stretching out like a flayed skin
thrown down to dry, one could run like a deer
and flee, but life with a family binds up your feet.

G. Hart