Shloka 356
Adhyāya 6: Pañca-mahābhūta–guṇa-nirdeśa and Sudarśana-dvīpa
Five Elements, Sensory Qualities, and a Cosmographic Island
एकादश सहस्राणि वर्षाणां परमायुष: । गन्धमादनके अन्यान्य पार्श्चर्ती पर्वतोंपर दूसरी-दूसरी नदियाँ हैं, जहाँ निवास करनेवाले लोगोंकी आयु ग्यारह हजार वर्षोकी होती है
ekādaśa sahasrāṇi varṣāṇāṃ paramāyuṣaḥ | gandhamādane anyāni pārśvavartī parvatopari dvitīya-dvitīyā nadyaḥ santi, yatra nivāsinaḥ janāḥ ekādaśa-sahasra-varṣa-āyuṣaḥ bhavanti |
Sañjaya said: “On Gandhamādana there are other rivers as well, flowing along the mountain’s sides. The people who dwell in those regions are said to have a supreme lifespan of eleven thousand years.”
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The passage underscores the Mahābhārata’s vision of graded worlds and extraordinary regions: sacred geography is linked with exceptional human conditions (such as longevity), suggesting that environment, merit, and cosmic order are interconnected.
Sañjaya is describing wondrous features associated with Gandhamādana—rivers on the mountain’s flanks and the extraordinary lifespan of the people living there—within a broader descriptive account rather than battlefield action.