Shloka 14
Brahmacarya-Upāya: Jñāna, Śauca, and the Mind’s Role in Desire (शान्ति पर्व, अध्याय २०७)
तस्मिन्नपि महाबाहो प्रादुर्भूते महात्मनि । तमसा पूर्वजो जज्ञे मधुर्नाम महासुर:,उन महाबाहु महात्मा ब्रह्माजीकी भी उत्पत्ति हो जानेपर वहाँ तमोगुणसे मधुनामक महान् असुर प्रकट हुआ, जो असुरोंका पूर्वज था
tasminn api mahābāho prādurbhūte mahātmani | tamasā pūrvajo jajñe madhur nāma mahāsuraḥ ||
Bhīṣma said: “O mighty-armed one, even after that great-souled being had manifested, there arose from the principle of darkness (tamas) a mighty Asura named Madhu, who became the progenitor of the Asuras.”
भीष्म उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse frames moral and cosmic disorder as arising from tamas (darkness/ignorance). Even alongside the manifestation of a great-souled creative principle, tamasic forces can emerge, becoming sources of further adharma; thus vigilance and cultivation of sattva are implied.
Bhīṣma describes an early cosmogonic episode: after the appearance of a great being (understood in the tradition as Brahmā or a primordial creator), a powerful Asura named Madhu is born from tamas and becomes an ancestral figure among the Asuras.