Shloka 8

अक्षरब्रह्मयोगः | Akṣara-Brahma-Yoga

The Yoga of the Imperishable Brahman

Devanagari script

ज्ञानविज्ञानतृप्तात्मा कूटस्थोः विजितेन्द्रिय: । युक्त इत्युच्यते योगी समलोष्टाश्मकाउ्चन:

Transliteration

jñāna-vijñāna-tṛptātmā kūṭastho vijitendriyaḥ | yukta ity ucyate yogī sama-loṣṭāśma-kāñcanaḥ ||

Translation

အသိဉာဏ်နှင့် အတွေ့အကြုံသိမြင်မှု (jñāna–vijñāna) ဖြင့် အတွင်းစိတ် ပြည့်ဝကျေနပ်သူ၊ မပြောင်းလဲမယိမ်းယိုင်သော အခြေတည် (kūṭastha) ရှိသူ၊ အာရုံခံအင်္ဂါများကို အပြည့်အဝ အနိုင်ယူထားသူ၊ မြေတုံး၊ ကျောက်တုံးနှင့် ရွှေကို တူညီဟု မြင်သူ—ထိုသူကို “ယုက္တ” (yukta) ဟူသော စည်းကမ်းပြည့်ဝသော ယောဂီ၊ ဘုရားနှင့် တကယ်တမ်း ပေါင်းစည်းသူဟု ခေါ်ကြသည်။

Word by Word

• {'jñāna': 'knowledge

• understanding of truth', 'vijñāna': 'realized knowledge

• direct discernment/insight', 'tṛpta-ātmā': 'one whose inner self is content/satiated', 'kūṭastha': 'steadfast

• abiding like an anvil (unaffected by change)', 'vijita-indriyaḥ': 'one who has conquered the senses', 'yuktaḥ': 'yoked

• disciplined', 'ucyate': 'is said/called', 'yogī': 'practitioner of yoga

• one established in spiritual discipline', 'sama': 'equal

• same-minded', 'loṣṭa': 'clod of earth', 'aśma': 'stone', 'kāñcana': 'gold'}

Speaker

अर्जुन उवाच

Characters & Entities

• yogī
• loṣṭa (clod of earth)
• aśma (stone)
• kāñcana (gold)

Educational Q&A

What is the core teaching?

The verse defines the ‘yukta’ yogin: one who is inwardly fulfilled by knowledge and realized insight, steady amid change, self-controlled, and free from value-obsession—treating earth, stone, and gold with equal regard. Ethical maturity is shown as non-attachment and even-mindedness.

What is happening in the narrative?

In the Bhīṣma Parva’s Bhagavadgītā setting on the battlefield, the teaching describes the qualities of a spiritually integrated person. It is not a battlefield action but a characterization meant to guide Arjuna’s understanding of disciplined life and right conduct amid crisis.