Shloka 53
वृत्ति-सत्सङ्ग-दान-धर्म
Livelihood, Virtuous Association, and Ethics of Giving
खोरक: सौरभेयाणामूषरं पृथिवीतले । पशूनामपि धर्मज्ञ दृष्टिप्रत्यवरोधनम्
bhīṣma uvāca | khorakaḥ saurabheyāṇām ūṣaraṃ pṛthivītale | paśūnām api dharmajña dṛṣṭi-pratyavarodhanam ||
Bhishma berkata: “Wahai yang mengetahui dharma, bahkan dalam kalangan haiwan pun ada ‘demam’ yang menjelma menurut bentuknya sendiri. Pada lembu dan sapi jantan, penyakit pada kuku yang disebut khoraka itulah demam mereka. Di permukaan bumi, tanah tandus masin (ūṣara) ialah demam bumi. Dan terhalangnya daya penglihatan haiwan—wahai yang mengetahui dharma—juga harus difahami sebagai demam mereka.”
भीष्म उवाच
Educational Q&A
Bhishma frames ‘fever’ as a broad principle of affliction: each class of beings (animals, the earth itself) has characteristic forms of disorder. The ethical point is to cultivate discerning awareness of suffering in all beings and to understand that harm and imbalance manifest in many subtle ways, not only as obvious illness.
In the Shanti Parva’s instruction to Yudhiṣṭhira, Bhishma continues a didactic explanation that catalogs how ‘jvara’ (fever/affliction) appears differently across beings. Here he identifies hoof-disease in cattle, barren saline land as the earth’s affliction, and impairment of animals’ vision as another form of their ‘fever.’