Shloka 6
जनक–पराशर संवादः — वर्ण-गोत्र-धर्मविचारः
Janaka–Parāśara: Varṇa, Gotra, and Dharma Inquiry
प्रसारयित्वेहाड़्ननि कूर्म: संहरते यथा । तद्धद् भूतानि भूतानामल्पीयांसि स्थवीयसाम्
bhīṣma uvāca | prasārayitvehāṅgāni kūrmaḥ saṃharate yathā | tadvad bhūtāni bhūtānām alpīyāṃsi sthavīyasām |
Bhishma said: “Just as a tortoise extends its limbs here and then draws them back in, so too the bodies of all beings arise from the five great elements—beginning with space—and, in due course, dissolve back into those very elements. Thus the subtle constituents are gathered into the greater, and embodied life is seen as a cycle of manifestation and reabsorption.”
भीष्म उवाच
Educational Q&A
Embodied forms are temporary configurations of the five great elements; they arise from those elements and ultimately dissolve back into them. The tortoise metaphor illustrates expansion into manifestation and withdrawal into reabsorption, encouraging detachment from the body as a final reality.
In Shanti Parva, Bhishma instructs on philosophical and ethical understanding after the war. Here he uses a vivid natural image—the tortoise extending and withdrawing its limbs—to explain how bodies and material forms emerge from the elemental basis of nature and return to it.