Shloka 29
Vyaktāvyakta-Viveka and Nivṛtti as Paramā Gati
Manifest–Unmanifest Discrimination and the Supreme Path of Withdrawal
ज्ञानेन्द्रियाण्यत: पठच पज््च कर्मेन्द्रियाण्यपि । विषया: पञ्च चैकं॑ च विकारे षोडशं मन:
jñānendriyāṇy ataḥ pañca pañca karmendriyāṇy api | viṣayāḥ pañca caikaṃ ca vikāre ṣoḍaśaṃ manaḥ ||
Bhīṣma sprach: „Als Nächstes kommen die fünf Erkenntnisorgane und ebenso die fünf Handlungsorgane. Zusammen mit den fünf Sinnesobjekten und dem einen Geist—dies alles wird als sechzehn Wandlungen bezeichnet. Wer diese Bestandteile der verkörperten Erfahrung versteht, lernt, das Selbst von den wandelbaren Werkzeugen der Wahrnehmung und des Handelns zu unterscheiden—ein entscheidender Schritt zu Selbstbeherrschung und rechter Lebensführung.“
भीष्म उवाच
Educational Q&A
Bhīṣma enumerates the components of embodied experience: five sense faculties, five action faculties, five sense-objects, and the mind—together called sixteen modifications. The teaching supports discernment (viveka): these are instruments and products of change, not the enduring self, and recognizing this aids self-control and ethical living.
In Śānti Parva, Bhīṣma instructs Yudhiṣṭhira on dharma and liberation-oriented knowledge. Here he is presenting a Sāṅkhya-style analysis of the psycho-physical apparatus, classifying the senses, their objects, and the mind as evolutes to be understood and mastered.