Shloka 33
Śrī–Indra–Bali Saṃvāda: The Departure and Fourfold Placement of Lakṣmī
अविद्यां क्षेत्रमाहुरहि कर्म बीज॑ तथा कृतम् । तृष्णा संजननं स्नेह एष तेषां पुनर्भव:,अविद्याको वे क्षेत्र कहते हैं। पूर्व-जन्मोंका किया हुआ कर्म बीज है और तृष्णा अंकुरकी उत्पत्ति करानेवाला स्नेह या जल है। यही उनके मतमें पुनर्जन्मका प्रकार है
avidyāṁ kṣetram āhur hi karma bījaṁ tathā kṛtam | tṛṣṇā sañjananaṁ sneha eṣa teṣāṁ punarbhavaḥ ||
Bhishma said: “They declare ignorance to be the field; the deeds performed (in former lives) are the seed. Craving is the moisture—attachment—that makes the sprout arise. Such, in their view, is the mechanism by which beings are born again.”
भीष्म उवाच
Educational Q&A
Rebirth is explained through an agricultural metaphor: ignorance provides the ‘field’ for bondage, past actions supply the ‘seed’ of future experience, and craving/attachment acts like ‘moisture’ that makes the seed sprout again as renewed existence. Reducing ignorance and craving is implied as the ethical-spiritual remedy.
In Shanti Parva, Bhishma instructs Yudhishthira on dharma and liberation-oriented wisdom. Here he summarizes a doctrinal account of how saṁsāra continues—linking avidyā, karma, and tṛṣṇā as the causal chain behind repeated birth.