Mahabharata 3.201.37 — Vana Parva, Adhyaya 201, Shloka 37
Dharma-vyādha’s Analysis of Moral Decline and the Mahābhūta–Guṇa Schema (धर्मव्याधोपदेशः)
अन्नमेव विशिष्ट हि तस्मात् परतरं न च
annam eva viśiṣṭaṁ hi tasmāt parataraṁ na ca | ataḥ annaṁ hi sarvebhyaḥ mahatvākī vastuḥ | tasmād bṛhataraṁ dvitīyā kācid vastuḥ na vidyate | vedeṣu annaṁ prajāpatiḥ iti ucyate | prajāpatiḥ saṁvatsaraḥ mataḥ | saṁvatsaraḥ yajñarūpaḥ, yajñe ca sarvasya sthitiḥ |
Mārkaṇḍeya sprach: „Allein die Speise ist wahrhaft erhaben; nichts überragt sie. Darum ist Nahrung das Wichtigste von allem — es gibt kein Zweites, das größer wäre. In den Veden wird Nahrung Prajāpati genannt; und Prajāpati wird als das Jahr (saṁvatsara) verstanden. Das Jahr selbst ist von der Natur des Opfers (yajña), und im Opfer werden Wohlergehen und Bestand aller Wesen gegründet.“
मार्कण्डेय उवाच
Educational Q&A
Food (anna) is presented as the highest practical and sacred support of life. By linking anna with Prajāpati, the Year (saṁvatsara), and sacrifice (yajña), the verse teaches that sustenance, time, and sacrificial duty form a single ethical-cosmic framework: life is maintained through orderly giving, reciprocity, and reverence for the sources of nourishment.
Mārkaṇḍeya is instructing his listeners by elevating the status of food from mere material necessity to a Vedic principle. He explains a chain of identifications—food as Prajāpati, Prajāpati as the Year, the Year as sacrifice—to show that the stability of all beings rests upon the sacrificial order that sustains nourishment and life.
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