Shloka 2
Dehānta (Cyavana) and Upapatti: Kāśyapa’s Questions and the Siddha’s Account of Death, Pain, and Karmic Re-embodiment
काश्यप उवाच कथं शरीरं च्यवते कथं चैवोपपद्मते । कथं कष्टाच्च संसारात् संसरन् परिमुच्यते
kāśyapa uvāca: kathaṃ śarīraṃ cyavate kathaṃ caivopapadyate | kathaṃ kaṣṭācca saṃsārāt saṃsaran parimucyate ||
ਕਾਸ਼੍ਯਪ ਨੇ ਪੁੱਛਿਆ—ਹੇ ਮਹਾਤਮਾ! ਇਹ ਸਰੀਰ ਕਿਵੇਂ ਛੁੱਟ ਜਾਂਦਾ ਹੈ? ਫਿਰ ਦੂਜਾ ਸਰੀਰ ਕਿਵੇਂ ਪ੍ਰਾਪਤ ਹੁੰਦਾ ਹੈ? ਅਤੇ ਇਹ ਦੇਹੀ, ਜੋ ਇਸ ਦੁੱਖਮਯ ਸੰਸਾਰ-ਚੱਕਰ ਵਿੱਚ ਭਟਕਦਾ ਰਹਿੰਦਾ ਹੈ, ਇਸ ਤੋਂ ਪੂਰੀ ਤਰ੍ਹਾਂ ਕਿਵੇਂ ਮੁਕਤ ਹੁੰਦਾ ਹੈ?
काश्यप उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse frames the central philosophical problem of saṃsāra: the mechanism of death (the body’s falling away), rebirth (attaining another body), and the means of final release (mokṣa). It signals an inquiry into karma-driven transmigration and the liberating knowledge or discipline that ends suffering.
Kāśyapa, as the speaker, poses a set of probing questions to a revered interlocutor (addressed as “mahātman” in the accompanying sense): he asks how death occurs, how rebirth follows, and how a wandering being can be freed from the painful cycle of worldly existence—setting up a doctrinal explanation in the subsequent passage.