अध्याय १७८ — प्राणवायुगतिः तथा शारीराग्निव्यवस्था
Adhyāya 178 — The courses of prāṇa-vāyu and the regulation of the bodily fire
दम्यनाशकृते मड़किरमृतत्वं किलागमत् । अच्छिनत् काममूलं स तेन प्राप महत्सुखम्
damyanāśakṛte maḍkiramṛtatvaṃ kilāgamat | acchinat kāmamūlaṃ sa tena prāpa mahatsukham ||
ဘိဿမက ပြောသည်– «နွားကလေးများ ပျက်စီးသွားခြင်းကို အကြောင်းပြု၍ မဍ္ကိ (Maḍki) သည် မသေမပျက်မှုကို ရရှိခဲ့သည်ဟု ဆိုကြသည်။ သူသည် ကာမ (ဆန္ဒတပ်မက်မှု) ၏ အမြစ်ကို ဖြတ်တောက်ခဲ့၏; ထို့ကြောင့် မဟာသုခကို ရရှိခဲ့သည်»။
भीष्म उवाच
Lasting happiness arises from uprooting desire (kāma) rather than merely managing its outward expressions. The verse frames renunciation as a decisive inner act—‘cutting the root’—which leads to great sukha and even ‘amṛtatva’ (deathlessness/spiritual attainment).
Bhīṣma cites the example of the ascetic Maḍki: after an event described as the destruction/loss of calves, Maḍki takes that misfortune as the occasion for deep dispassion, severs desire at its source, and thereby attains immortality and great happiness.