Shloka 157
Śuka’s Guṇa-Transcendence and Vyāsa’s Consolation (शुकगति-वर्णनम्)
सप्ताडस्यास्य राज्यस्य त्रिदण्ड्यस्येव तिष्ठतः । अन्योन्यगुणयुक्तस्य कः केन गुणतोडघधिक:
saptāṅgasyāsya rājyasya tridaṇḍyasyeva tiṣṭhataḥ | anyonyaguṇayuktasya kaḥ kena guṇato 'dhikaḥ ||
Bhīṣma said: “This kingdom, possessed of seven constituent limbs, stands in your hand as if it were a triple staff. Both—your seven-limbed polity and my threefold staff—are endowed with mutually excellent qualities. Tell me then: which is superior to which, and by what virtue?”
भीष्य उवाच
Educational Q&A
Bhīṣma frames governance as an ethical system: a kingdom is sustained by interdependent limbs (the saptāṅga model), and its excellence must be judged by virtues rather than mere power. He also links political authority with disciplined restraint symbolized by the tridaṇḍa.
In the Śānti Parva’s instruction on rājadharma, Bhīṣma addresses the king (Yudhiṣṭhira) and compares the seven-limbed state in the king’s hand to a triple staff in his own, inviting a discussion on comparative excellence and the virtues that make a polity superior.