Shloka 16
आदित्या वसवो रुद्रा: साश्रिन: पितरो5डपि च । धर्म: श्रुत॑ तपो दीक्षा व्यवसाय: पितामह:
ādityā vasavo rudrāḥ sāśrinaḥ pitaro ’pi ca | dharmaḥ śrutaṃ tapo dīkṣā vyavasāyaḥ pitāmahaḥ ||
Bhīṣma said: “May the Ādityas, the Vasus, the Rudras, the Pitṛs, and also Dharma; sacred learning (śruti), austerity (tapas), consecratory discipline (dīkṣā), steadfast resolve (vyavasāya), and the Grandsire (Pitāmaha) protect us.”
भीष्म उवाच
Educational Q&A
Protection and well-being are grounded in alignment with Dharma and the disciplines that uphold it—sacred learning (śruti), austerity (tapas), consecrated practice (dīkṣā), and steadfast resolve (vyavasāya)—along with reverence for cosmic and ancestral orders.
Bhīṣma is reciting a protective invocation within a broader catalogue of divine and cosmic lineages. He names major classes of gods and moral-spiritual principles, asking them to guard the listeners, thereby framing ethical life as participation in a larger sacred order.