Shloka 5636
Dharma-vyādha’s Analysis of Moral Decline and the Mahābhūta–Guṇa Schema (धर्मव्याधोपदेशः)
अन्तरा चैव नाश्नाति तस्य लोका हानामया: । जो लोग छठी राततक उपवास करते हैं, वे मोर जुते हुए विमानोंद्वारा जाते हैं। पाण्डुनन्दन! जो लोग एक बार भोजन करके उसीपर तीन रात काट ले जाते हैं और बीचमें भोजन नहीं करते, उन्हें रोग-शोकसे रहित पुण्यलोक प्राप्त होते हैं
antarā caiva nāśnāti tasya lokā hānāmayāḥ |
Vaiśampāyana said: “One who refrains from eating in the intervening period attains worlds free from decline and disease. Those who fast up to the sixth night are said to travel in peacock-yoked aerial cars. O son of Pāṇḍu, those who eat only once and then pass three nights sustained by that alone—without taking food in between—reach meritorious realms untouched by illness and sorrow.”
वैशम्पायन उवाच
Educational Q&A
The passage teaches that disciplined restraint in eating—undertaken as a vrata—generates puṇya, leading to exalted posthumous states described as realms free from decline, disease, and sorrow. It frames bodily self-control as an ethical-spiritual practice with karmic results.
Vaiśampāyana is describing to a Pāṇḍava (addressed as ‘son of Pāṇḍu’) the specific fruits of certain fasting patterns: fasting up to six nights is poetically rewarded with travel in peacock-yoked vimānas, while eating once and then abstaining for three nights yields access to meritorious, affliction-free worlds.