Shloka 125
Adhyāya 199: Karma–Jñāna Causality and the Nirguṇa Brahman
Manu’s Instruction
चतुर्भिलक्षणैहीनं तथा षड्भि: सषोडशै: । पुरुषं तमतिक्रम्प आकाशं प्रतिपद्यते
caturbhir lakṣaṇair hīnaṁ tathā ṣaḍbhiḥ saṣoḍaśaiḥ | puruṣaṁ tam atikramya ākāśaṁ pratipadyate ||
毗卢婆（Virūpa）言：超越彼普鲁沙（Puruṣa），便证得譬如虚空之实在。于彼处，四种相与知量——现量、比量、譬量与圣言量（śabda）——皆不能及；六种“波浪”——饥、渴、忧、痴、老、死——亦不生起。又复超越具身经验之十六器：五知根、五作根、五气（prāṇa）与意（manas）。
विरूप उवाच
Educational Q&A
Liberation is described as transcending the conditioned Puruṣa and realizing an unconditioned reality compared to space (ākāśa), where ordinary means of knowledge and the entire psycho-physical apparatus (senses, prāṇas, mind) do not operate, and where existential afflictions like hunger, grief, aging, and death do not arise.
In Śānti Parva’s instruction-oriented setting, Virūpa speaks a doctrinal verse outlining a hierarchy of realization: one goes beyond the Puruṣa and attains the ‘space-like’ ultimate, characterized negatively as beyond pramāṇas/definitions, beyond the six ‘waves’ of suffering, and beyond the sixteen instruments of embodied experience.