Shloka 12
ब्रह्मघोष-प्रवर्तनम्, अनध्याय-नियमः, वायु-मार्ग-वर्णनम्
Restoring Vedic Recitation, the Anadhyaya Rule, and the Taxonomy of Winds
अन्य: स पुरुषो व्यक्त स्त्वध्रुवो ध्रुवसंज्ञक: । यथा मुज्ज इषीकाणां तथैवैतद्धि जायते
anyaḥ sa puruṣo vyaktaḥ tv adhruvo dhruvasaṃjñakaḥ | yathā muñja iṣīkāṇāṃ tathaivaitad dhi jāyate ||
Yājñavalkya dit : «Cet autre être — le soi individuel manifesté — est en vérité impermanent, bien qu’on le désigne comme “permanent”. De même que la tige de l’herbe muñja laisse apparaître ses fibres de moelle (iṣīkā), ainsi, en effet, naît cette (distinction du soi).»
याज़्वल्क्य उवाच
Educational Q&A
The manifest individual (the embodied ‘person’ as ordinarily conceived) is not truly permanent, even if people call it ‘eternal.’ Yājñavalkya points to a discriminative insight: what is taken as the enduring self is often a constructed notion, and true discernment separates the essential from the non-essential.
In a didactic discourse within Śānti Parva, Yājñavalkya explains metaphysical discrimination. He uses a concrete rural image—extracting inner fibres from a muñja reed—to illustrate how a distinction or ‘separation’ is made: by analysis one draws out what is subtle/essential from what is gross/outer, clarifying the status of the individual self as commonly understood.