Shloka 141

धर्मस्य बहुद्वारत्वम् — Nārada’s Audience with Indra (Śānti-parva 340)

Devanagari script

यजवध्वं सुहुतैर्यज्ञै: शाश्वतं परमेश्वरम्‌ । पारम्पर्यागतं होतत्‌ पित्रा मे कथितं पुरा

Transliteration

yajadhvaṁ suhūtair yajñaiḥ śāśvataṁ parameśvaram | pāramparyāgataṁ hotat pitrā me kathitaṁ purā ||

Translation

Bhīṣma dit : «Célébrez le culte par des sacrifices dûment offerts, et adorez l’Éternel Souverain Seigneur. Ce récit sacré, transmis par la lignée, me fut jadis raconté par mon père.»

Word by Word

• {'yajadhvam': 'worship (you all), perform sacrifice

• imperative plural of √yaj', 'suhūtaiḥ': 'well-offered, properly poured/oblated (offerings)', 'yajñaiḥ': 'by sacrifices, ritual offerings (instrumental plural)', 'śāśvatam': 'eternal, everlasting', 'parameśvaram': 'the Supreme Lord', 'pāramparyāgatam': 'received through tradition/lineage, transmitted successively', 'ākhyānam': 'narrative, sacred account (implied by the Hindi gloss

• often the understood object)', 'pitrā': 'by (my) father (instrumental singular)', 'me': 'to me / my', 'kathitam': 'told, narrated', 'purā': 'formerly, long ago'}

Speaker

भीष्म उवाच

Characters & Entities

• Bhīṣma
• Parameśvara (the Supreme Lord)
• Bhīṣma's father (Śāntanu, implied)

Educational Q&A

What is the core teaching?

Bhīṣma urges disciplined, properly performed sacrifice as a form of devotion to the Eternal Supreme Lord, emphasizing that such dharmic practice is grounded in authoritative tradition (paramparā).

What is happening in the narrative?

In the didactic setting of Śānti Parva, Bhīṣma instructs his listeners to worship the Supreme through well-offered rites and legitimizes the instruction by citing that he received this teaching through ancestral transmission from his father.