Shloka 72

Adhyāya 284: Tapas as a Corrective to Household Attachment

Parāśara’s Instruction

Devanagari script

शतोदर शतावर्त शतजिह्द नमोस्तु ते

Transliteration

śatodara śatāvarta śatajihva namo'stu te

Translation

«Ô Toi aux Cent Ventres, ô Toi aux Cent Enroulements, ô Toi aux Cent Langues : à toi mon salut révérencieux.»

Word by Word

• शतोदर: O (you) of a hundred bellies
• शतोदर: Sampradana
• Type: Adjective
• Root: शत-उदर
• Form: Masculine, Vocative, Singular

• शतावर्त: O (you) of a hundred coils/whorls
• शतावर्त: Sampradana
• Type: Adjective
• Root: शत-आवर्त
• Form: Masculine, Vocative, Singular

• शतजिह्व: O (you) of a hundred tongues
• शतजिह्व: Sampradana
• Type: Adjective
• Root: शत-जिह्वा
• Form: Masculine, Vocative, Singular

• नमः: salutation, homage
• नमः: Karma
• Type: Indeclinable
• Root: नमस्

• अस्तु: let it be
• Type: Verb
• Root: अस् (अस्ति)
• Form: Imperative (Vidhi-lin), 3rd, Singular

• ते: to you
• ते: Sampradana
• Type: Pronoun
• Root: युष्मद्
• Form: Masculine, Dative, Singular

Speaker

भीष्म उवाच

Characters & Entities

• Bhīṣma

Educational Q&A

What is the core teaching?

The verse models humility and devotion: when confronted with a vast, many-aspected power, one responds with reverence rather than arrogance, acknowledging limits of human control and understanding.

What is happening in the narrative?

Bhīṣma is speaking and offers a formal salutation (namo'stu te) to a being described through hyperbolic epithets—“hundred-bellied, hundred-coiled, hundred-tongued”—as part of a praise or invocation within the Śānti Parva discourse.