Mahabharata — Anushasana Parva, Shloka 69
Pitṛ-śrāddha-haviḥ-phala-nirdeśa
Offerings for Ancestors and Their Stated Results
समर्था धारणे चापि रुद्रतेज:प्रधर्षिता । नाशकत् _त॑ तदा गर्भ संधारयितुमोजसा,यद्यपि गंगाजी उस गर्भको धारण करनेमें समर्थ थीं; तो भी रुद्रके तेजसे पराभूत होकर बलपूर्वक उसे धारण न कर सकीं
samarthā dhāraṇe cāpi rudra-tejaḥ-pradharṣitā | nāśakat tadā garbhaṃ sandhārayitum ojasā ||
ဘီရှ္မက ပြော၏—«ဂင်္ဂါသည် သန္ဓေကို ဆောင်ယူနိုင်စွမ်းရှိသော်လည်း ရုဒြ၏ တေဇောဓာတ်တောက်လောင်မှုကြောင့် အနိုင်ယူခံရ၍၊ မိမိအင်အားရှိသော်လည်း ထိုအချိန်၌ ထိုသန္ဓေကို မထိန်းသိမ်းနိုင်ခဲ့»။
भीष्म उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse highlights the supremacy of divine tejas (spiritual potency): even a powerful being may be unable to act when confronted with a higher, overwhelming force. It also implies ethical humility—recognizing limits and the workings of destiny beyond mere capability.
Bhīṣma narrates that Gaṅgā, though naturally able to carry a pregnancy, could not sustain a particular embryo because Rudra’s intense energy overpowered her, preventing the gestation from being maintained.