Shloka 126
Śuka’s Guṇa-Transcendence and Vyāsa’s Consolation (शुकगति-वर्णनम्)
यथा<55दित्यान्मणेश्षापि वीरुद्धयश्चैव पावक: । जायन्त्येवं समुदयात् कलानामिव जन्तव:
yathādityān maṇeḥ śāpī viruddhayaś caiva pāvakaḥ | jāyanty evaṃ samudayāt kalānām iva jantavaḥ ||
Bhīṣma said: Just as fire is manifested from a sūryakānta gem when it comes into contact with the sun’s rays, and as fire arises from wood when it is rubbed in mutual friction, so too living beings come to take birth from the coming-together (aggregate) of the previously described constituent ‘kalās’. The teaching underscores that embodied life emerges through the convergence of conditions, not by chance, and that effects follow from appropriate causes when the requisite factors unite.
भीष्य उवाच
Educational Q&A
That birth and manifestation occur when the necessary causes and conditions assemble—like fire emerging from a sunstone under sunlight or from wood through friction—so embodied existence is the result of a lawful conjunction of constituent factors (kalās).
Bhīṣma is instructing (in Śānti Parva’s didactic setting) by giving two familiar analogies for emergence: fire appears when the right enabling conditions are present; likewise, beings arise when the previously discussed constituent elements combine.