Shloka 33
Adhyāya 287 — Janaka’s Inquiry on Śreyas, Abhayadāna, and Asaṅga
Non-attachment
मूढानामवलिप्तानामसारं भाषितं बहु । दर्शयत्यन्तरात्मानमग्निरूपमिवांशुमान्
mūḍhānām avaliptānām asāraṃ bhāṣitaṃ bahu | darśayaty antarātmānam agnirūpam ivāṃśumān ||
那罗陀说：“愚昧与傲慢之人所吐出的许多空洞之言，终将显露他们自身的内里——正如光辉的太阳与日光石相触，便显现其灼烧如火的本性。虚浮而自负的言辞并非无害；它暴露说话者内心的污浊与缺乏辨别。”
नारद उवाच
Educational Q&A
Worthless, pride-driven talk is self-exposing: it reveals the speaker’s inner state (antarātman). Ethical speech is therefore a discipline of character—one’s words inevitably disclose one’s discernment, humility, and purity (or their absence).
In Śānti Parva’s didactic setting, Nārada delivers a moral observation: the foolish and arrogant may speak at length, but their verbosity only manifests their inner defects. He illustrates this with a natural-philosophical simile: the sun’s latent burning power becomes evident when it ignites fire through a sunstone.