Shloka 36
न च जीवं विना ब्रह्मन् वायवश्रैष्टयन्त्युत । स जीव: परिसंख्यात: शेष: संकर्षण: प्रभु:,“ब्रह्मम! जीवके बिना प्राणवायु चेष्टा नहीं करती। वह जीव ही शेष या भगवान् संकर्षण कहा गया है
na ca jīvaṃ vinā brahman vāyavaś ceṣṭayanti uta | sa jīvaḥ parisaṅkhyātaḥ śeṣaḥ saṅkarṣaṇaḥ prabhuḥ ||
Bhīṣma said: “O Brahmin, without the jīva, even the vital winds (prāṇa) do not set themselves into activity. That very jīva is spoken of as Śeṣa—indeed the Lord Saṅkarṣaṇa—who upholds and draws together the powers of life.”
भीष्म उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse asserts the primacy of the jīva: the vital airs (prāṇas) do not function independently but operate in dependence on the living self. It further elevates this life-principle by identifying it with Śeṣa/Saṅkarṣaṇa, suggesting a divine ground that sustains embodied life.
In Śānti Parva’s instruction, Bhīṣma continues his philosophical teaching to a Brahmin interlocutor, explaining how life and bodily functions relate—linking physiological activity (the prāṇas) to the deeper metaphysical principle (jīva), and framing that principle in devotional-cosmological terms as Śeṣa/Saṅkarṣaṇa.