Shloka 5
तेभ्य: सृजति भूतानि काल आत्मप्रचोदित: । एतेभ्यो य: परं ब्रूयादसद् ब्रूयादसंशयम्
tebhyaḥ sṛjati bhūtāni kāla ātmapracoditaḥ | etebhyo yaḥ paraṃ brūyād asad brūyād asaṃśayam ||
Asita said: “From these principles Time—impelled by its own inherent force—brings forth all beings. Whoever were to speak of something ‘higher’ than these would, without doubt, be speaking what is unreal.”
असित उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse asserts a causal hierarchy in which beings arise from certain stated principles, with Time (kāla) functioning as the operative force. It warns that positing something ‘beyond’ these as a higher cause is to assert an unreality—i.e., to depart from what is being presented as the true explanatory framework.
In a didactic discourse within Śānti Parva, the sage Asita is explaining a cosmological/ontological account of how creation proceeds. He emphasizes Time as the effective agent and closes the point by rejecting speculative claims of a superior principle beyond the ones under discussion.