Shloka 2

अध्याय २२० — बलिवासवसंवादः

Bali–Vāsava Dialogue on Kāla and Steadfastness

Devanagari script

भीष्म उवाच दममेव प्रशंसन्ति वृद्धा: श्रुतिसमाधय: । सर्वेषामेव वर्णानां ब्राह्मणस्य विशेषत:

Transliteration

bhīṣma uvāca | damam eva praśaṃsanti vṛddhāḥ śruti-samādhayaḥ | sarveṣām eva varṇānāṃ brāhmaṇasya viśeṣataḥ ||

Translation

ဘိဿမက ပြောသည်– «ယုဓိဋ္ဌိရ၊ ဝေဒ၏ အဆုံးအဖြတ်များ၌ တည်ကြည်သော အိုမင်းပညာရှိတို့သည် ‘ဒမ’—ကိုယ်ကိုထိန်းချုပ်ခြင်းကိုသာ ချီးမွမ်းကြသည်။ အလုံးစုံသော ဝဏ္ဏများအတွက် ချီးမြှောက်ကြပြီး၊ အထူးသဖြင့် ဗြာဟ္မဏအတွက်ပင် ဖြစ်သည်—စိတ်နှင့် အင်္ဂါရုံတို့ကို အနိုင်ယူခြင်းသည် မှန်ကန်သော အကျင့်နှင့် ဝိညာဉ်ရေး ကြည်လင်မှု၏ အမြစ်ဖြစ်သောကြောင့်။»

Word by Word

• {'damam (dama)': 'self-restraint

• control of the mind and senses', 'eva': 'alone

• precisely', 'praśaṃsanti': 'they praise

• they commend', 'vṛddhāḥ': 'elders

• mature and authoritative persons', 'śruti': 'Vedic revelation

• the Vedas', 'samādhayaḥ': 'settled conclusions

• firmly established understandings (of doctrine)', 'sarveṣām': 'of all', 'varṇānām': 'of the varṇas

• social orders/classes', 'brāhmaṇasya': 'of the Brahmin', 'viśeṣataḥ': 'especially

Speaker

भीष्म उवाच

Characters & Entities

• Bhīṣma
• Yudhiṣṭhira (implied addressee)
• vṛddhāḥ (elders)
• śruti (the Veda)

Educational Q&A

What is the core teaching?

That dama—self-restraint, especially control of mind and senses—is universally praised as a foundational virtue for dharma, and is particularly essential for a Brahmin whose life is oriented toward study, purity, and spiritual discernment.

What is happening in the narrative?

In the Śānti Parva’s instruction to Yudhiṣṭhira, Bhīṣma continues his ethical teaching by citing the view of venerable, Veda-grounded elders: among virtues, they single out self-control as paramount for all, with special emphasis on Brahmins.