Mahabharata — Shanti Parva, Shloka 26
अव्यक्त-मानस-सृष्टिवादः
Doctrine of Creation from the Unmanifest ‘Mānasa’
पुत्रदारकुट॒म्बेषु प्रसक्ता: सर्वमानवा: । शोकपड्कार्णवे मरना जीर्णा वनगजा इव
putradārakuṭumbeṣu prasaktāḥ sarvamānavāḥ | śokapaṅkārṇave magnā jīrṇā vanagajā iva ||
The Brāhmaṇa said: All people, clinging to wife, children, and household, sink into the mire-like ocean of grief—just as aged wild elephants, trapped in a swamp, perish. The verse warns that attachment to family-identity, when treated as ultimate, becomes a cause of bondage and sorrow rather than a support for dharma.
ब्राह्मण उवाच
Educational Q&A
Excessive attachment to wife, children, and household—when it becomes clinging—leads to entanglement in sorrow. The verse urges cultivating discernment and detachment so that one lives with family responsibly under dharma, without being bound by possessiveness and fear of loss.
A Brāhmaṇa speaker delivers an instructive simile: humans absorbed in family-attachments are compared to old wild elephants that get stuck in a swamp and die. The image functions as a moral warning within Śānti Parva’s broader instruction on peace, self-mastery, and liberation-oriented wisdom.