Mahabharata — Anushasana Parva, Shloka 30

Kīṭopākhyāna: Prajā-pālana as Kṣatra-vrata and the Attainment of Brāhmaṇya

Devanagari script

सर्वयज्ञेषु वा दानं॑ सर्वतीर्थेषु वा55प्लुतम्‌ । सर्वदानफलं वापि नैतत्तुल्यमहिंसया

Transliteration

sarvayajñeṣu vā dānaṁ sarvatīrtheṣu vā plutam | sarvadānaphalaṁ vāpi naitat tulyam ahiṁsayā ||

Translation

ဘီရှ္မက မိန့်ကြားသည်– ယဇ္ဉ အားလုံးတွင် ပေးကမ်းသော ဒါန၊ တီရ္ထ (ဘုရားဖူးရေချိုးရာ) အားလုံးတွင် ရေချိုးခြင်း၊ ထို့ပြင် ဒါန အမျိုးမျိုး၏ အကျိုးफल အားလုံးကို စုစည်းထားသော်လည်း—အဟိṃသာ၏ အကျိုးနှင့် မတူနိုင်။

Word by Word

• सर्वयज्ञेषु: in all sacrifices
• सर्वयज्ञेषु: Adhikarana
• Type: Noun
• Root: सर्वयज्ञ
• Form: Masculine, Locative, Plural

• वा: or
• Type: Indeclinable
• Root: वा

• दानम्: gift; giving (charity)
• दानम्: Karta
• Type: Noun
• Root: दान
• Form: Neuter, Nominative, Singular

• सर्वतीर्थेषु: in all sacred fords/pilgrimage places
• सर्वतीर्थेषु: Adhikarana
• Type: Noun
• Root: सर्वतीर्थ
• Form: Neuter, Locative, Plural

• वा: or
• Type: Indeclinable
• Root: वा

• प्लुतम्: bathed/immersed (i.e., a dip taken)
• प्लुतम्: Karta
• Type: Adjective
• Root: प्लुत
• Form: Neuter, Nominative, Singular

• सर्वदानफलम्: the fruit of all gifts
• सर्वदानफलम्: Karta
• Type: Noun
• Root: सर्वदानफल
• Form: Neuter, Nominative, Singular

• वा: or
• Type: Indeclinable
• Root: वा

• अपि: even; also
• Type: Indeclinable
• Root: अपि

• न: not
• Type: Indeclinable
• Root: न

• एतत्: this (all of this)
• एतत्: Karta
• Type: Pronoun
• Root: एतद्
• Form: Neuter, Nominative, Singular

• तुल्यम्: equal
• तुल्यम्: Karta
• Type: Adjective
• Root: तुल्य
• Form: Neuter, Nominative, Singular

• अहिंसया: with/compared to non-violence
• अहिंसया: Karana
• Type: Noun
• Root: अहिंसा
• Form: Feminine, Instrumental, Singular

Speaker

भीष्म उवाच

Characters & Entities

• Bhishma

Educational Q&A

What is the core teaching?

Ahimsa (non-violence) is presented as superior to the combined religious merit of sacrifices, pilgrimages, and all forms of charity; ethical restraint from harming beings outweighs external ritual and pious acts.

What is happening in the narrative?

In Anushasana Parva, Bhishma instructs Yudhishthira on dharma; here he emphasizes a hierarchy of virtues, declaring that the merit of non-violence surpasses the fruits of yajña, tīrtha-bathing, and dāna.