Shloka 4
Vyādha–Brāhmaṇa Saṃvāda: Śāpa, Vṛtta-Dharma, and Counsel Against Viṣāda
Grief
पिता माता च भगवन् गुरुरेव च सत्तम | यच्चान्यद् देवविहितं तच्चापि भूगुनन्दन,“भगवन! श्रेष्ठ ब्रह्मर्ष] इस जगत्में सूर्य, चन्द्रमा, वायु, पृथिवी, अग्नि, पिता, माता और गुरु--ये प्रत्यक्ष देवता दिखायी देते हैं। भूगुनन्दन! इसके सिवा अन्य जो देवतारूपसे स्थापित देवविग्रह हैं, वे भी प्रत्यक्ष देवताओंकी ही कोटियें हैं"
pitā mātā ca bhagavan gurur eva ca sattama | yac cānyad devavihitaṃ tac cāpi bhṛgunandana ||
Vaiśampāyana said: “O venerable one, the father, the mother, and indeed the teacher—O best of the good—are to be regarded as manifest divinities. And whatever else is divinely ordained and established as a form of the gods, O delight of the Bhṛgus, that too belongs to the same class of visible divinity.”
वैशम्पायन उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse teaches that dharma begins with reverence to those who directly sustain and guide one’s life—father, mother, and guru—treating them as ‘manifest’ divinity; it also affirms respect for other divinely sanctioned forms of worship as belonging to the sphere of visible sacred presence.
Vaiśampāyana, in the course of recounting the Vana Parva narrative, states a general dharmic principle: certain human relationships (parents and teacher) are to be honored as immediate, tangible embodiments of the divine, alongside other divinely instituted objects/forms of reverence.