Shloka 10
कुण्डधारोपाख्यानम्
Kuṇḍadhāra-Upākhyāna: Dharma’s Superiority over Wealth and Desire
अत्र गाथा ब्रह्मगीता: कीर्तयन्ति पुराविद: । शुचेरश्रद्दधानस्य श्रद्दधानस्य चाशुचे:
atra gāthā brahmagītāḥ kīrtayanti purāvidaḥ | śucer aśraddadhānasya śraddadhānasya cāśuceḥ mīmāṃsitvobhayam devāḥ samam annam akalpayan |
Bhishma said: “On this matter, those who know the ancient accounts recite a ‘Brahma-gītā’, a traditional verse sung by Brahmā. It says: the gods, after examining both cases, once deemed the food-offering to be the same—whether it came from a person who was outwardly pure but lacked faith, or from one who had faith but was outwardly impure. In other words, they judged the worth of an offering not merely by external cleanliness, but by a considered evaluation that could place inner disposition and outer condition on a single scale.”
भीष्म उवाच
Educational Q&A
External purity (śuci/aśuci) and inner faith (śraddhā/aśraddhā) do not always align; therefore the value of an offering should be assessed through thoughtful discernment rather than by outward markers alone. The verse highlights a deliberate, evaluative approach (mīmāṃsitvā) to ethical and ritual judgment.
Bhīṣma introduces an authoritative ancient saying attributed to Brahmā, reported by tradition-knowers. In that saying, the gods are described as having deliberated and then treated two contrasting kinds of donors—pure-but-faithless and faithful-but-impure—as equivalent with respect to the food-offering, emphasizing a nuanced standard of evaluation.