Shloka 5
जनकस्य मोक्षमार्गप्रश्नः तथा पञ्चशिखोपदेश-प्रस्तावः | Janaka’s Path to Liberation: Prelude to Pañcaśikha’s Instruction
न भूर्न खं द्यौर्भूतानि नर्षयो न सुरासुरा: । नान्यदासीदृते जीवमासेदुर्न तु संहतम्,पहले पृथ्वी, आकाश, स्वर्ग, भूतगण, ऋषिगण तथा देवता और असुरगण इनमेंसे कोई नहीं था। चेतनके सिवा दूसरी किसी वस्तुकी सत्ता ही नहीं थी। जड-चेतनका संयोग भी नहीं था
na bhūr na khaṁ dyaur bhūtāni na ṛṣayo na surāsurāḥ | nānyad āsīd ṛte jīvam āsedur na tu saṁhatam ||
Bhīṣma said: In the beginning there was neither earth, nor sky, nor heaven; neither the hosts of beings, nor the seers, nor the gods and asuras. Nothing else existed apart from the living conscious principle. Even the conjunction of the inert and the conscious had not yet come to be.
भीष्म उवाच
Educational Q&A
Before manifested creation, all differentiated categories—worlds, beings, sages, and even gods and asuras—are denied; only the conscious living principle (jīva) is affirmed. The verse stresses a pre-manifest state where the sentient and insentient are not yet conjoined, pointing to an ontological priority of consciousness over formed matter and categories.
In the Śānti Parva’s instruction to Yudhiṣṭhira, Bhīṣma shifts from practical dharma to higher reflection on origins and reality. Here he begins a cosmogonic account: describing an initial unmanifest condition in which familiar cosmic structures and classes of beings are absent, setting the stage for explaining how creation and differentiation arise.