Shloka 18
अनुशासनपर्व अध्याय ९३ — तपस्, सदोपवास, विघसाशन, अतिथिप्रियता
Austerity, regulated fasting, residual-eating, and hospitality
षष्टिं काण: शतं षण्ढ: श्रित्री यावत्प्रपश्यति । पंक््त्यां समुपविष्टायां तावद् दूषयते नृप
ṣaṣṭiṁ kāṇaḥ śataṁ ṣaṇḍhaḥ śvitri yāvat prapaśyati | paṅktyāṁ samupaviṣṭāyāṁ tāvad dūṣayate nṛpa rājān |
Bhīṣma said: “O king, it is taught that when people are seated together in a dining row, a one-eyed man is said to taint sixty; an impotent man, a hundred; and a person afflicted with white leprosy is said to taint as many as he can see. The point is to stress the need for ritual and social safeguards in communal acts, so that what is undertaken as a pure, dharmic observance is not considered compromised.”
भीष्म उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse conveys a dharma-śāstric notion that communal rites—especially shared dining—are considered vulnerable to ‘ritual taint’ from certain stigmatized conditions, emphasizing vigilance about purity rules in collective observances.
In Anuśāsana Parva, Bhīṣma is instructing the king on dharma and proper conduct; here he cites a traditional rule about how impurity is thought to spread within a seated dining line, using numerical measures to underline the seriousness of maintaining ritual order.