Shloka 33
Adhyāya 287 — Janaka’s Inquiry on Śreyas, Abhayadāna, and Asaṅga
Non-attachment
मूढानामवलिप्तानामसारं भाषितं बहु । दर्शयत्यन्तरात्मानमग्निरूपमिवांशुमान्,घमंडी मूर्खोॉंकी कही हुई असार बातें उनके दूषित अन्त:करणका ही प्रदर्शन कराती हैं, ठीक उसी तरह जैसे सूर्य सूर्यकान्तमणिके योगसे अपने दाहक अग्निरूपको ही प्रकट करता है
mūḍhānām avaliptānām asāraṃ bhāṣitaṃ bahu | darśayaty antarātmānam agnirūpam ivāṃśumān ||
Nārada sprach: „Die vielen hohlen Worte, die die Törichten und Hochmütigen reden, enthüllen am Ende ihr eigenes Inneres—so wie die strahlende Sonne, im Kontakt mit dem Sonnenstein, ihre brennende, feuerhafte Natur offenbart. Leeres, stolzes Gerede ist nicht harmlos: Es legt die innere Unreinheit und den Mangel an Unterscheidungsvermögen des Sprechers bloß.“
नारद उवाच
Educational Q&A
Worthless, pride-driven talk is self-exposing: it reveals the speaker’s inner state (antarātman). Ethical speech is therefore a discipline of character—one’s words inevitably disclose one’s discernment, humility, and purity (or their absence).
In Śānti Parva’s didactic setting, Nārada delivers a moral observation: the foolish and arrogant may speak at length, but their verbosity only manifests their inner defects. He illustrates this with a natural-philosophical simile: the sun’s latent burning power becomes evident when it ignites fire through a sunstone.