Shloka 23

Puruṣaikatva-vyākhyāna: The One Virāṭ Puruṣa and the Many ‘Puruṣas’

Rudra–Brahmā Saṃvāda

Devanagari script

अवश्यं तपसा तेषां फलितव्यं नृपोत्तम । यतस्त्वं सहसा भ्रष्ट आकाशान्मेदिनीतलम्‌

Transliteration

avaśyaṃ tapasā teṣāṃ phalitavyaṃ nṛpottama | yatastvaṃ sahasā bhraṣṭa ākāśān medinītalam ||

Translation

ဘီဿမက ဆိုသည်– «အို မင်းတို့အနက် အမြတ်ဆုံးသော မင်းကြီး၊ ထို မဟာဗြာဟ္မဏတို့၏ တပဿာသည် မဖြစ်မနေ အကျိုးဖြစ်ထွန်းပြီးသားပင်—သင်သည် တစ်ခဏတည်းကောင်းကင်မှ မြေပြင်သို့ ရုတ်တရက်ကျဆင်းလာခဲ့သောကြောင့် ဖြစ်သည်။ ထို့ကြောင့် အုပ်ချုပ်သူသည် ထိုသို့သော ဗြာဟ္မဏတို့ကို အမြဲတမ်း ဂုဏ်ပြုရမည်၊ အကြောင်းမူကား သူတို့၏ ဓမ္မတေဇသည် မလွဲမသွေ မြင်သာသော အကျိုးဆက်ကို ပေးတတ်သည်»။

Word by Word

• अवश्यम्: certainly, inevitably
• Type: Indeclinable
• Root: अवश्य

• तपसा: by austerity
• तपसा: Karana
• Type: Noun
• Root: तपस्
• Form: neuter, instrumental, singular

• तेषाम्: of them
• Type: Pronoun
• Root: तद्
• Form: masculine/neuter, genitive, plural

• फलितव्यम्: must bear fruit / must result
• Type: Verb
• Root: फल्
• Form: gerundive (तव्यत्), neuter, nominative, singular, passive-necessity

• नृपोत्तम: O best of kings
• Type: Noun
• Root: नृप + उत्तम
• Form: masculine, vocative, singular

• यतः: since, because
• Type: Indeclinable
• Root: यत्

• त्वम्: you
• त्वम्: Karta
• Type: Pronoun
• Root: युष्मद्
• Form: nominative, singular

• सहसा: suddenly, abruptly
• Type: Indeclinable
• Root: सहसा

• भ्रष्टः: fallen, slipped down
• Type: Verb
• Root: भ्रंश्
• Form: past passive participle (क्त), masculine, nominative, singular

• आकाशात्: from the sky
• आकाशात्: Apadana
• Type: Noun
• Root: आकाश
• Form: neuter, ablative, singular

• मेदिनीतलम्: the surface of the earth (ground)
• मेदिनीतलम्: Karma
• Type: Noun
• Root: मेदिनी + तल
• Form: neuter, accusative, singular

Speaker

भीष्म उवाच

Characters & Entities

• Bhīṣma
• nṛpa (king, addressed as nṛpottama/nṛpaśreṣṭha)
• brāhmaṇas (implied by context)
• ākāśa (sky)
• medinī-tala (earth/ground)

Educational Q&A

What is the core teaching?

A king should consistently honor and respect brāhmaṇas/ascetics, because the power generated by their tapas inevitably produces results; disregarding them can lead to sudden downfall.

What is happening in the narrative?

Bhīṣma explains a sudden fall of the king from the sky to the earth as the manifest ‘fruit’ of the brāhmaṇas’ austerities, using the event to reinforce a lesson on royal conduct and reverence toward spiritual authority.