Shloka 23
मृत्युर्जरा च व्याधिश्व दु:खं चानेककारणम् | अनुषक्तं यदा देहे किं स्वस्थ इव तिष्ठसि,पिताजी! जब इस शरीरमें मृत्यु, जरा, व्याधि और अनेक कारणोंसे होनेवाले दुःखोंका आक्रमण होता ही रहता है, तब आप स्वस्थ-से होकर क्यों बैठे हैं?
mṛtyur jarā ca vyādhiś ca duḥkhaṃ cānekakāraṇam | anuṣaktaṃ yadā dehe kiṃ svastha iva tiṣṭhasi pitāji ||
Bhishma said: “When death, old age, disease, and suffering born of many causes remain ever fastened to the body, why do you sit as though you were well, O revered father?”
भीष्म उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse urges sober awareness of the body’s inherent fragility: death, aging, disease, and multifaceted suffering are inseparable from embodied life. Therefore one should not live in complacent ‘health-as-normal’ forgetfulness, but act wisely and ethically with remembrance of impermanence.
In Bhīṣma’s instruction within the Śānti Parva, he addresses an elder as “father,” challenging him for behaving as if secure and well despite the constant presence of mortality and bodily afflictions. The line functions as a moral wake-up call within a didactic discourse.