Shloka 109
Śuka’s Guṇa-Transcendence and Vyāsa’s Consolation (शुकगति-वर्णनम्)
सुखासुखे जरामृत्यू लाभालाभौ प्रियाप्रिये । इति चैकोनविंशो<यं द्वन्द्रयोग इति स्मृत:
sukhāsukhe jarāmṛtyū lābhālābhau priyāpriye | iti caikonaviṁśo ’yaṁ dvandrayoga iti smṛtaḥ ||
Bhīṣma said: “Equanimity toward the paired opposites—pleasure and pain, old age and death, gain and loss, the dear and the undesired—this discipline of meeting dualities with steadiness is remembered as the nineteenth quality.”
भीष्य उवाच
Educational Q&A
To cultivate steadiness toward life’s opposites—pleasure/pain, gain/loss, dear/undesired, and even aging/death—so that one’s conduct remains aligned with dharma rather than driven by fluctuating circumstances.
In Śānti Parva’s instruction section, Bhīṣma is advising Yudhiṣṭhira on virtues and disciplines. Here he enumerates a specific quality—‘dvandva-yoga,’ the practice of equanimity toward dualities—and identifies it as the nineteenth in the list being taught.