Shloka 30

परिव्राजक-आचारः (Conduct of the Wandering Renunciant) — Mahābhārata, Śānti-parva 269

Devanagari script

चतुर्थोपनिषद्‌ धर्म: साधारण इति स्मृति: । संसिद्धै: साध्यते नित्यं ब्राह्मणैर्नियतात्मभि:

Transliteration

caturthopaniṣad dharmaḥ sādhāraṇa iti smṛtiḥ | saṃsiddhaiḥ sādhyate nityaṃ brāhmaṇair niyatātmabhiḥ ||

Translation

ကပိလက ပြောသည်– «‘စတုတ္ထ’ (တူရိယ) အုပနိသဒ်သဘောတရားနှင့် ဆက်နွယ်သော စည်းကမ်းဓမ္မသည် စမృతိအရ အများသုံး (သမ္မတ) ဓမ္မဟု ဆိုကြသည်။ သို့ရာတွင် ထိုလမ်းကို အမြဲတမ်း တည်ငြိမ်စွာ ပြည့်စုံအောင် ဆောင်ရွက်နိုင်သူမှာ ကိုယ်စိတ်ကို ထိန်းချုပ်ထား၍ တပဿာဖြင့် ပြည့်စုံသွားသော ဗြာဟ္မဏများ—ဗြဟ္မန်၌ တည်မြဲနေသူများ—သာ ဖြစ်ကြသည်»။

Word by Word

• चतुर्थोपनिषद्: the fourth Upaniṣad (i.e., the Upaniṣadic knowledge connected with the fourth state)
• चतुर्थोपनिषद्: Karta
• Type: Noun
• Root: चतुर्थ-उपनिषद्
• Form: Feminine, Nominative, Singular

• धर्मः: dharma; discipline
• धर्मः: Karta
• Type: Noun
• Root: धर्म
• Form: Masculine, Nominative, Singular

• साधारणः: common (to all)
• साधारणः: Karta
• Type: Adjective
• Root: साधारण
• Form: Masculine, Nominative, Singular

• इति: thus
• Type: Indeclinable
• Root: इति

• स्मृतिः: Smṛti (traditional law-text); tradition
• स्मृतिः: Karta
• Type: Noun
• Root: स्मृति
• Form: Feminine, Nominative, Singular

• संसिद्धैः: by the fully accomplished (ones)
• संसिद्धैः: Karana
• Type: Adjective
• Root: संसिद्ध
• Form: Masculine, Instrumental, Plural

• साध्यते: is practiced; is accomplished
• Type: Verb
• Root: साध्
• Form: Present, Third, Singular, Passive (Ātmanepada-form)

• नित्यम्: always
• Type: Indeclinable
• Root: नित्य

• ब्राह्मणैः: by Brahmins
• ब्राह्मणैः: Karana
• Type: Noun
• Root: ब्राह्मण
• Form: Masculine, Instrumental, Plural

• नियतात्मभिः: by those of restrained self
• नियतात्मभिः: Karana
• Type: Adjective
• Root: नियत-आत्मन्
• Form: Masculine, Instrumental, Plural

Speaker

कपिल उवाच

Characters & Entities

• Kapila
• Smṛti
• Brahmanas
• Brahman (turiya-related realization)

Educational Q&A

What is the core teaching?

Upaniṣadic realization (turiya/Brahman-oriented knowledge) is presented as a universal dharma in principle, but in practice it is consistently attainable only by those who have strong self-restraint and spiritual maturity—disciplined aspirants perfected by tapas and steadiness of mind.

What is happening in the narrative?

In the Śānti Parva’s instructional dialogue, Kapila is explaining a hierarchy of spiritual practice: although the highest contemplative discipline is said to be ‘common’ to all, its sustained observance and fruition require exceptional inner control and accomplished ascetic-spiritual preparation.