Shloka 19
Adhyāya 240: Indriya–Manas–Buddhi–Ātman — The Inner Hierarchy and Restraint (इन्द्रिय-मनस्-बुद्धि-आत्म-क्रमः)
विधूम इव दीप्तार्चिरादित्य इव दीप्तिमान्
vyāsa uvāca | vidhūma iva dīptārcir āditya iva dīptimān, sattva-saṃsevanād dhīro nidrām ucchettum arhati | vidvān yoge ye kāma-krodha-lobha-bhayaṃ pañcamaṃ ca svapnam—ime pañca doṣāḥ proktāḥ—tān sarvathā ucchetayet | teṣāṃ madhye krodhaṃ śamena (manonigrahena) jayet, kāmaṃ saṅkalpa-tyāgena parājayet, tathā dhīraḥ sattva-guṇa-sevanena nidrāyā ucchedaṃ kartum arhati ||
Vyāsa said: “Like a smokeless flame, like the radiant sun, the steadfast person—by cultivating sattva—becomes fit to cut off sleep. A wise practitioner should completely uproot the five faults taught in yoga: desire, anger, greed, fear, and (as the fifth) dreaming. Of these, let him conquer anger through calm self-restraint, defeat desire by abandoning compulsive resolve, and by nourishing the quality of sattva the resolute one can bring sleep to an end.”
व्यास उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse teaches that a yogic aspirant should uproot five inner obstacles—desire, anger, greed, fear, and dreaming—and that practical methods exist: anger is subdued by śama (calm self-restraint), desire is weakened by abandoning saṅkalpa (the mental resolve that feeds craving), and sleep/torpor is overcome by cultivating sattva (clarity and balance).
Within Śānti Parva’s instruction on peace and inner discipline, Vyāsa delivers a didactic teaching on yogic self-mastery, using luminous imagery (smokeless flame, radiant sun) to describe the purified, sattvic practitioner who becomes capable of overcoming sleep and other mental faults.