Shloka 76
मेरोर्दिग्वर्णनम् / Digvarṇana of Meru: Uttara-Kuru, Bhadrāśva, and Jambūdvīpa Motifs
आयु:प्रमाणं जीवन्ति शतानि दश पञ्च च । जनेश्वर! वहाँके लोग साढ़े बारह हजार वर्षोंकी आयुतक जीवित रहते हैं
āyuḥpramāṇaṃ jīvanti śatāni daśa pañca ca | janeśvara! tatra te lokāḥ sārdha-dvādaśa-sahasra-varṣāṇām āyutak jīvanti ||
Sañjaya said: “O lord of men, their lifespan is fixed: they live for fifteen hundreds (that is, fifteen centuries). There, those people live up to an age of twelve and a half thousand years.”
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse highlights the idea of a divinely or naturally fixed measure of life (āyuḥpramāṇa), emphasizing that different realms or peoples may have vastly different lifespans, underscoring the Mahābhārata’s broader reflection on time, mortality, and the limits set upon embodied beings.
Sañjaya continues his report to the king (addressed as janeśvara, understood as Dhṛtarāṣṭra), describing the extraordinary longevity of certain inhabitants ‘there’—a detail within a larger descriptive passage in Bhīṣma Parva, chapter 8.