Shloka 29
Karma, Preta-gati, and the Continuity of Phala
Mārkaṇḍeya’s Instruction
एवं वै सुखदु:खाभ्यां हीनमस्ति पद क्वचित् | एषा मम मति: सर्प यथा वा मन्यते भवान्,अब तुमने जो यह कहा कि सुख-दुःखसे रहित कोई दूसरा वेद्य तत्त्व है ही नहीं, सो तुम्हारा यह मत ठीक है। सुख-दुःखसे शून्य कोई पदार्थ नहीं है। किंतु एक ऐसा पद है भी। जिस प्रकार बर्फमें उष्णता और अग्निमें शीतलता कहीं नहीं रहती, उसी प्रकार जो वेद्य-पद है, वह वास्तवमें सुख-दुःखसे रहित ही है। नागराज! मेरा तो यही विचार है, फिर आप जैसा मानें
evaṁ vai sukha-duḥkhābhyāṁ hīnam asti pada kvacit | eṣā mama matiḥ sarpa yathā vā manyate bhavān |
Yudhiṣṭhira said: “Indeed, is there anywhere any state wholly devoid of pleasure and pain? This is my understanding, O serpent—yet let it be as you deem. For in ordinary experience nothing is found entirely empty of happiness and sorrow; and yet there is spoken of a ‘state’ that is truly beyond them. Just as heat is not found in ice, nor coolness in fire, so that knowable highest state is, in truth, free from pleasure and pain. This is my considered view, O lord of serpents; decide as you will.”
युधिछिर उवाच
Educational Q&A
Yudhiṣṭhira distinguishes ordinary lived experience—where pleasure and pain seem inseparable—from the possibility of a highest knowable state (pada) that is genuinely beyond both. The verse frames liberation-like freedom as a qualitative transcendence, illustrated by the analogy that heat cannot exist in ice and coolness cannot exist in fire.
In a philosophical exchange in the Vana Parva, Yudhiṣṭhira addresses a serpent (Nāga), presenting his reasoned position about whether any ‘state’ exists that is free from sukha and duḥkha, while courteously allowing the interlocutor to judge the matter.