Shloka 26
Adhyāya 199: Karma–Jñāna Causality and the Nirguṇa Brahman
Manu’s Instruction
धर्म उदाच अलं देहे मनः कृत्वा त्यक्त्वा देह सुखी भव । गच्छ लोकानरजसो यत्र गत्वा न शोचसि
dharma uvāca—alaṃ dehe manaḥ kṛtvā tyaktvā dehaḥ sukhī bhava | gaccha lokān arajaso yatra gatvā na śocasi ||
Dharma said: “Enough of fastening your mind upon the body. Abandon this bodily identification and become at peace. Go to those stainless worlds, free from the dust of rajas—passion—where, once you have reached them, you will no longer grieve.”
ब्राह्मण उवाच
Educational Q&A
Dharma instructs the seeker to stop clinging to bodily identity and to cultivate detachment; by renouncing fixation on the body and moving toward a stainless, passion-free state (arajas), one reaches a condition where grief no longer arises.
In a didactic dialogue within Śānti Parva, Dharma addresses a brāhmaṇa/ascetic, urging him to abandon attachment to the body and to seek higher, purified realms of being—described as free from rajas—where sorrow is transcended.