Shloka 6
Adhyāya 122 — Śruta-vṛtta-yukta Brāhmaṇa and the Ethics of Dāna
Maitreya–Vyāsa Saṃvāda
मनुष्य मूर्ख हो या विद्वान, यदि वह वाणी, बुद्धि और हाथ-पैरसे रहित होकर जीवित है तो उसे कौन-सी वस्तु त्यागेगी, वह तो सभी पुरुषार्थोंसे स्वयं ही परित्यक्त है ।।
Manuṣya mūrkho ho yā vidvān, yadi sa vāṇī-buddhi ca hasta-pāda-rahitaḥ san jīvati, tarhi taṃ kā vastu tyajet? sa tu sarvaiḥ puruṣārthaiḥ svayam eva parityaktaḥ. Jīvana hi kurute pūjāṃ viprāgryaḥ śaśi-sūryayoḥ; bruvann api kathāṃ puṇyāṃ tatra kīṭa tvam eṣyasi, kīṭa!
Vyāsa dit : «Qu’un homme soit sot ou savant, s’il vit privé de la parole, de l’intelligence et de l’usage des mains et des pieds, qu’est-ce qui pourrait encore l’abandonner ? En vérité, il est déjà abandonné par toutes les fins de la vie humaine. Or il est un brahmane éminent nommé Jīvana, qui vénère sans cesse la Lune et le Soleil et qui récite aussi des récits saints ; c’est là, ô ver, qu’en temps voulu tu naîtras comme son fils».
व्यास उवाच
Educational Q&A
Human flourishing (puruṣārtha) depends on functional capacities like speech, discernment, and agency; without them, worldly aims fall away on their own. The passage also underscores karmic consequence and moral causality through the promise of a future birth shaped by association with a pious Brahmin devoted to worship and sacred narration.
Vyāsa speaks in a didactic tone: first he reflects on how a severely incapacitated life is effectively ‘abandoned’ by the usual human goals; then he introduces a virtuous Brahmin named Jīvana who worships the Sun and Moon and tells holy stories, declaring to a being addressed as ‘kīṭa’ that it will be reborn there as a son.