Sthitaprajna (sthitaprajña)

A sthitaprajna is one of steady wisdom, the ideal person described in the second chapter of the Bhagavad Gita when Arjuna asks how such a person walks, speaks and sits. The answer is a portrait rather than a rule: unshaken in sorrow, unhungry in pleasure, drawing the senses in as a tortoise draws in its limbs, awake in what is night for others. The epic gives few complete examples, though Bhishma on his bed of arrows and Vidura in the assembly come closest.