Shloka 47

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

Devanagari script

अहं हि जीवसंज्ञातो मयि जीव: समाहित: । नैवं ते बुद्धिरत्राभूद्‌ दृष्टो जीवो मयेति वै

Transliteration

ahaṁ hi jīvasaṁjñāto mayi jīvaḥ samāhitaḥ | naivaṁ te buddhir atrābhūd dṛṣṭo jīvo mayeti vai ||

Translation

Bhishma dit : « Je suis en vérité connu sous le nom de “jīva” (le soi vivant), et en moi le jīva est établi. Mais ne conçois pas ici la pensée : “j’ai vu le jīva”, comme s’il s’agissait d’un objet saisissable par la perception ordinaire. »

Word by Word

• {'aham': 'I', 'hi': 'indeed, for', 'jīva-saṁjñātaḥ': 'known/designated as ‘jīva’', 'mayi': 'in me', 'jīvaḥ': 'the living being

• individual self', 'samāhitaḥ': 'placed, established, contained

• composed/collected', 'na': 'not', 'evaṁ': 'thus, in this manner', 'te': 'your', 'buddhiḥ': 'understanding, thought, notion', 'atra': 'here, in this context', 'abhūt': 'arose, came to be', 'dṛṣṭaḥ': 'seen, perceived', 'mayā': 'by me', 'iti': 'thus (quotative)', 'vai': 'indeed, surely (emphatic particle)'}

Speaker

भीष्म उवाच

Characters & Entities

• Bhīṣma
• jīva

Educational Q&A

What is the core teaching?

Bhishma cautions against treating the jīva (self) as a merely external object of sight. The self is to be understood as the inner principle of life and consciousness, not as something ‘seen’ like a physical entity; hence one must refine one’s notion of knowledge and perception in spiritual inquiry.

What is happening in the narrative?

In the Shanti Parva’s instruction-setting, Bhishma continues his philosophical exposition and clarifies a possible misunderstanding: the listener should not conclude that Bhishma has ‘seen’ the jīva in a literal, sensory way; rather, he is speaking about the jīva’s status and abiding reality in a doctrinal sense.