Shloka 49
मृदु-तीक्ष्ण-नीति तथा दुष्टलक्षण-विज्ञानम्
Measured Policy and the Recognition of Malicious Disposition
पृथगेत्य समश्नाति नेदमद्य यथाविधि । आसने शयमने याने भावा लक्ष्या विशेषत:
pṛthag etya samaśnāti nedam adya yathāvidhi | āsane śayamane yāne bhāvā lakṣyā viśeṣataḥ ||
Bhishma said: “One who comes and eats apart from the others, and then complains, ‘Today this food has not been prepared as it ought to be,’ is to be regarded as wicked. In such matters—how a person sits, lies down, and moves about—one can discern, with particular clarity, the inner dispositions that reveal a corrupt character.”
भीष्म उवाच
Educational Q&A
Bhishma teaches that inner character is revealed through everyday conduct: isolating oneself while eating and fault-finding about what is served indicates a corrupt disposition, and one’s habitual manners of sitting, resting, and moving are reliable signs of one’s moral state.
In the Shanti Parva’s instruction on dharma and right conduct, Bhishma is describing observable behavioral markers by which one can recognize a person of bad character, using the example of antisocial eating and habitual complaint, and extending it to bodily comportment in daily life.