Shloka 16
दान-धर्म-आश्रमविधानम्
Dana, Dharma, and the Four Āśramas
तस्याकाशे निपतित: स्नेहस्तिष्ठति योडपर: । स संघातत्वमापन्नो भूमित्वमनुगच्छति,“उसका जो वह गीलापन आकाशमें गिरा, वही घनीभूत होकर पृथ्वीके रूपमें परिणत हो गया
tasyākāśe nipatitaḥ snehas tiṣṭhati yo 'paraḥ | sa saṅghātatvam āpanno bhūmitvam anugacchati ||
Bharadvāja said: “That remaining moisture which fell into the sky persists there; then, becoming condensed into a mass, it comes to assume the state of earth.”
भरद्वाज उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse teaches a principle of orderly transformation: subtle moisture in the sky, through condensation and aggregation, becomes solid earth. It implies a lawful, intelligible causality behind the formation of the world’s stable structures.
Bharadvāja is explaining a cosmological process—how a ‘remaining moisture’ that has gone into the sky persists there and, when it condenses into a compact mass, turns into earth—within a broader didactic discussion typical of the Śānti Parva.