Shloka 6
जनक–पराशर संवादः — वर्ण-गोत्र-धर्मविचारः
Janaka–Parāśara: Varṇa, Gotra, and Dharma Inquiry
प्रसारयित्वेहाड़्ननि कूर्म: संहरते यथा । तद्धद् भूतानि भूतानामल्पीयांसि स्थवीयसाम्
bhīṣma uvāca | prasārayitvehāṅgāni kūrmaḥ saṃharate yathā | tadvad bhūtāni bhūtānām alpīyāṃsi sthavīyasām |
ดุจเต่ากางอวัยวะออกแล้วหดกลับเข้าไป ฉันใด กายของสรรพสัตว์ทั้งปวงย่อมอุบัติจากมหาภูตทั้งห้า—เริ่มด้วยอากาศ—และในกาลอันควรก็สลายกลับคืนสู่มหาภูตเหล่านั้นฉันนั้น
भीष्म उवाच
Educational Q&A
Embodied forms are temporary configurations of the five great elements; they arise from those elements and ultimately dissolve back into them. The tortoise metaphor illustrates expansion into manifestation and withdrawal into reabsorption, encouraging detachment from the body as a final reality.
In Shanti Parva, Bhishma instructs on philosophical and ethical understanding after the war. Here he uses a vivid natural image—the tortoise extending and withdrawing its limbs—to explain how bodies and material forms emerge from the elemental basis of nature and return to it.