Shloka 12
Dāyavibhāga (Inheritance Apportionment) and Household Precedence — Dialogue of Yudhiṣṭhira and Bhīṣma
ब्राह्मणी तु भवेज्ज्येष्ठा क्षत्रिया क्षत्रियस्य तु रत्यर्थमपि शूद्रा स्यान्नेत्याहुरपरे जना:
bhīṣma uvāca | brāhmaṇī tu bhavej jyeṣṭhā kṣatriyā kṣatriyasya tu | ratyartham api śūdrā syān nety āhur apare janāḥ ||
ဘိဿမက ပြောသည်– «မယားတို့အနက် ဗြာဟ္မဏမိန်းမကို အမြင့်ဆုံးဟု သတ်မှတ်ကြ၏။ က္ෂတ္တရိယအတွက်လည်း က္ෂတ္တရိယမိန်းမက အမြင့်ဆုံးဖြစ်၏။ အချို့က လိင်ဆက်ဆံရေးအတွက်ဆိုလျှင် ရှုဒ္ဒရမိန်းမတောင် ယူနိုင်သည်ဟု ဆိုကြသော်လည်း အခြားသူတို့က မလက်ခံကြ»။
भीष्म उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse presents a normative hierarchy of preferred spouses within varṇa (Brahmin woman as foremost; for a Kshatriya, a Kshatriya woman as foremost) while also recording a disagreement: some permit a Shudra woman solely for sexual relations, whereas others reject that permissibility. The emphasis is on dharma-discourse that distinguishes between socially sanctioned marriage norms and contested, limited allowances.
In the Anushasana Parva’s instructional setting, Bhishma is giving guidance on conduct and social-religious norms. Here he reports differing opinions among authorities/people regarding acceptable marital or sexual unions across varṇa lines, indicating that the tradition contains debated positions rather than a single unanimous rule.