Shloka 22

Brahmopadeśa: Adhipatitva-kathana, Dharma-lakṣaṇa, and Kṣetra–Kṣetrajña Viveka

Book 14, Chapter 43

Devanagari script

शब्दलक्षणमाकाशं वायुस्तु स्पर्शलक्षण: । ज्योतिषां लक्षणं रूपमापश्ष रसलक्षणा:,शब्द आकाशका, वायु स्पर्शका, रूप तेजका और रस जलका लक्षण है

Transliteration

śabdalakṣaṇam ākāśaṁ vāyus tu sparśalakṣaṇaḥ | jyotiṣāṁ lakṣaṇaṁ rūpam āpaś ca rasalakṣaṇāḥ ||

Translation

ဝါယုဒေဝက မိန့်တော်မူသည်။ «အသံသည် အာကာသ (ākāśa) ၏ လက္ခဏာဖြစ်သည်။ ထိတွေ့မှုသည် လေ (vāyu) ၏ လက္ခဏာဖြစ်သည်။ ရုပ်သဏ္ဌာန်သည် တေဇ (tejas)—အလင်း/မီး—၏ လက္ခဏာဖြစ်သည်။ အရသာသည် အာပ (āpas)—ရေ—၏ လက္ခဏာဖြစ်သည်»။

Word by Word

• शब्दलक्षणम्: having sound as its characteristic
• शब्दलक्षणम्: Karta
• Type: Noun
• Root: शब्द-लक्षण
• Form: Neuter, Nominative, Singular

• आकाशम्: ether/space
• आकाशम्: Karta
• Type: Noun
• Root: आकाश
• Form: Neuter, Nominative, Singular

• वायुः: wind/air
• वायुः: Karta
• Type: Noun
• Root: वायु
• Form: Masculine, Nominative, Singular

• तु: but/and (contrastive particle)
• Type: Indeclinable
• Root: तु

• स्पर्शलक्षणः: having touch as its characteristic
• स्पर्शलक्षणः: Karta
• Type: Adjective
• Root: स्पर्श-लक्षण
• Form: Masculine, Nominative, Singular

• ज्योतिषाम्: of lights / of fire (tejas)
• Type: Noun
• Root: ज्योतिस्
• Form: Neuter, Genitive, Plural

• लक्षणम्: characteristic/mark
• लक्षणम्: Karta
• Type: Noun
• Root: लक्षण
• Form: Neuter, Nominative, Singular

• रूपम्: form/color
• रूपम्: Karta
• Type: Noun
• Root: रूप
• Form: Neuter, Nominative, Singular

• आपः: waters
• आपः: Karta
• Type: Noun
• Root: अप्
• Form: Feminine, Nominative, Plural

• रसलक्षणाः: having taste as their characteristic
• रसलक्षणाः: Karta
• Type: Adjective
• Root: रस-लक्षण
• Form: Feminine, Nominative, Plural

Speaker

वायुदेव उवाच

Characters & Entities

• Vāyu-deva
• ākāśa (space/ether)
• vāyu (wind/air)
• jyotis/tejas (light/fire)
• āpas (water)

Educational Q&A

What is the core teaching?

Each element is recognized by its characteristic sensory quality: space by sound, wind by touch, fire/light by form, and water by taste. The verse trains discernment (viveka) by mapping the world to fundamental qualities, a step toward understanding how perception relates to the constituents of nature.

What is happening in the narrative?

Vāyu-deva is instructing the listener in a doctrinal explanation of the elements (tattvas), presenting a concise list of defining attributes as part of a broader philosophical discourse in the Ashvamedhika Parva.