Mahabharata 3.201.46 — Vana Parva, Adhyaya 201, Shloka 46
Dharma-vyādha’s Analysis of Moral Decline and the Mahābhūta–Guṇa Schema (धर्मव्याधोपदेशः)
षडशीतिसहस्तराणि योजनानां नराधिप । यमलोकस्य चाध्वानमन्तरं मानुषस्य च,महाराज! मनुष्यलोक और यमलोकके मार्ममें छियासी हजार योजनोंका अन्तर है
ṣaḍaśītisahasrāṇi yojanānāṁ narādhipa | yamalokasya cādhvānam antaraṁ mānuṣasya ca, mahārāja ||
“नराधिप! मनुष्यलोक और यमलोक के बीच छियासी हजार योजन की दूरी है।”
वैशम्पायन उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse frames the afterlife within a moral-cosmic order: Yama’s realm is not merely a mythic place but part of an ethical universe where actions have consequences, and the journey toward judgment is portrayed as vast and formidable.
Vaiśampāyana addresses a king and states a cosmological measure: the separation between the human world and Yama’s world is eighty-six thousand yojanas, emphasizing the scale of the path associated with death and post-mortem reckoning.
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