Mahabharata — Ashvamedhika Parva, Shloka 15
Mind as Charioteer; Kṣetrajña, Tapas, and Dhyāna-Yoga
Adhyātma-Upadeśa
यावद् द्रव्यं गुणस्तावत् प्रदीप: सम्प्रकाशते । क्षीणे द्रव्ये गुणे ज्योतिरन्तर्धानाय गच्छति
yāvad dravyaṃ guṇas tāvat pradīpaḥ samprakāśate | kṣīṇe dravye guṇe jyotir antardhānāya gacchati ||
ဝါယုဒေဝက မိန့်တော်မူသည်— «မီးအိမ်၌ လောင်စာပစ္စည်းနှင့် ထိန်းထားသော ဂုဏ်သတ္တိများ ရှိနေသမျှ အလင်းထွန်း၍ အလင်းရောင် ဖြန့်ကျက်သည်။ ပစ္စည်းနှင့် ဂုဏ်သတ္တိတို့ ကုန်ခမ်းသွားလျှင် မီးလျှံလည်း ပျောက်ကွယ်ရာသို့ သွားသည်»။
वायुदेव उवाच
Educational Q&A
Manifestations depend on their supports: as a lamp’s light depends on fuel and sustaining conditions, so too strength, glory, or even life persists only while its causes endure; when the supports are exhausted, the manifestation naturally ceases. The ethical implication is to recognize impermanence and not cling to outward brilliance without maintaining its inner bases.
Vāyu-deva delivers an instructive analogy: he explains a principle through the example of a lamp—its illumination lasts only while fuel and enabling qualities remain, and it vanishes when they are spent—using this to guide the listener toward understanding dependence and cessation.