Shloka 17
महाभिष-गङ्गा-दर्शनं वसूनां शापकथनं च
Mahābhiṣa Encounters Gaṅgā; The Vasus Explain Their Curse
अष्टक उवाच यः संस्थित: पुरुषो दहांते वा निखन्यते वापि निकृष्यते वा । अभावभूत: स विनाशगमेत्य केनात्मना चेतयते परस्तात्,अष्टकने पूछा--जो मनुष्य मर जाता है, वह जलाया जाता है या गाड़ दिया जाता है अथवा जलनमें बहा दिया जाता है। इस प्रकार विनाश होकर स्थूल शरीरका अभाव हो जाता है। फिर वह चेतन जीवात्मा किस शरीरके आधारपर रहकर चैतन्ययुक्त व्यवहार करता है?
Aṣṭaka uvāca: yaḥ saṁsthitaḥ puruṣo dahyate vā nikhanyate vāpi nikṛṣyate vā | abhāvabhūtaḥ sa vināśam ety, kena ātmanā cetayate parastāt ||
Aṣṭaka said: “When a person dies, he is burned, or buried, or cast away and carried off. Thus, once the gross body is destroyed and becomes non-existent, by what self—on what basis—does that conscious being continue to perceive and act thereafter?”
अष्टक उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse frames a philosophical problem: if the physical body is destroyed after death, what is the continuing basis of consciousness? It points toward the distinction between the perishable body and an enduring principle (ātman) that accounts for awareness beyond bodily dissolution.
Aṣṭaka raises a probing question in a dialogue context, using common funeral outcomes (burning, burial, disposal) to argue that the gross body becomes absent; he then asks how the conscious self continues to function ‘thereafter,’ inviting a teaching on the nature of the self and post-mortem existence.