Shloka 803
पुरुष: पुरुष गच्छेन्निष्क्रियः पजचविंशक: । वैशम्पायनजीने कहा--जो अत्यन्त सूक्ष्म, सत्त्गगुणसे संयुक्त तथा अकार, उकार और मकार--इन तीन अक्षरोंसे युक्त प्रणवस्वरूप है, उस परम पुरुष परमात्माको पचीसवाँ तत्त्वरूप पुरुष (जीवात्मा) कर्तृत्वके अहंकारसे शून्य होनेपर प्राप्त करता है
vaiśampāyana uvāca | puruṣaḥ puruṣaṁ gacchen niṣkriyaḥ pañcaviṁśakaḥ |
Vaiśampāyana said: “The twenty-fifth principle—the individual self—when it becomes actionless, free from the ego of doership, attains the Supreme Person. That Supreme Self is described as exceedingly subtle, associated with sattva, and as the praṇava (Oṁ) constituted by the three sounds a, u, and m.”
वैशम्पायन उवाच
Educational Q&A
Liberation is framed as the jīva (the 25th tattva, puruṣa) attaining the Supreme Person by becoming niṣkriya—free from the ego of doership (ahaṅkāra tied to kartṛtva). The passage links this realization to contemplation of the Supreme as praṇava (Oṁ), the subtle, sattva-associated reality expressed as a-u-m.
In the didactic setting of Śānti Parva, Vaiśampāyana continues a philosophical exposition on liberation: he states, in aphoristic form, that when the individual self relinquishes the sense of agency and becomes inwardly actionless, it reaches the Supreme Self, characterized here through the symbolism of Oṁ.