Shloka 81
Śuka’s Guṇa-Transcendence and Vyāsa’s Consolation (शुकगति-वर्णनम्)
ज्ञान ज्ञेयेषु भिन्नेषु यदा भेदेन वर्तते । तत्रातिशायिनी बुद्धिस्तत् सौक्ष्म्यमिति वर्तते
jñāna-jñeyeṣu bhinneṣu yadā bhedena vartate | tatrātiśāyinī buddhis tat saukṣmyam iti vartate ||
Bhishma said: When, among distinct objects of knowledge, cognition proceeds by making clear distinctions—‘this is a pot, this is a cloth’—then the intellect that excels in accurate determination in such situations is called subtlety (saukṣmya).
भीष्य उवाच
Educational Q&A
Saukṣmya (subtlety) is defined as the superior discriminative intellect that can correctly distinguish among multiple distinct objects of knowledge and arrive at an accurate determination.
In the Śānti Parva’s instruction on dharma and wisdom, Bhīṣma is explaining a technical quality of intellect: how true understanding functions when many knowable things appear and one must judge precisely by distinguishing them.