Shloka 18
Adhyāya 177: Pañca-mahābhūta-vicāra and Vṛkṣa-jīva-lakṣaṇa
Five Elements Inquiry and the Status of Plant Life
इत्येभि: कारणैस्तस्य त्रिभिक्षित्तं प्रमाद्यति । सम्प्रसक्तमना भोगान् विसृज्य पितृसंचितान् । परिक्षीण: परस्वानामादानं साधु मन्यते
ity ebhiḥ kāraṇais tasya tribhikṣittaṃ pramādyati | samprasaktamanā bhogān visṛjya pitṛsaṃcitān | parikṣīṇaḥ parasvānām ādānaṃ sādhu manyate |
لهذه الأسباب يضطرب عقلُه، وقد أفسدته كبرياءٌ ثلاثية: الجمالُ والمالُ والنَّسب. فيقع في الغفلة، وقلبُه متعلّقٌ باللذّات، فيبدّد ما جمعه الآباءُ والأجداد؛ فإذا أُسقط إلى الفقر رأى الاستيلاءَ على أموالِ الناس أمرًا حسنًا.
भीष्म उवाच
Educational Q&A
Pride in beauty, wealth, and lineage breeds negligence; attachment to pleasure leads to wasting inherited resources, and poverty then tempts one to rationalize theft as ‘good.’ The verse warns against the moral slide from vanity to dissipation to wrongdoing.
In Bhishma’s instruction on righteous conduct in the Shanti Parva, he describes a recognizable ethical decline: a person intoxicated by social advantages becomes careless, loses ancestral wealth through indulgence, and finally justifies taking others’ property.