Shloka 17
Prāyaścitta and Contextual Non-Culpability (प्रायश्चित्त-निमित्त-अदोषवाद)
मरुप्रपातं प्रपतन् ज्वलनं वा समाविशन् । महाप्रस्थानमातिष्ठ न् मुच्यते सर्वकिल्बिषै:
maru-prapātaṁ prapatan jvalanaṁ vā samāviśan | mahāprasthānam ātiṣṭhan mucyate sarva-kilbiṣaiḥ ||
ব্যাসে ক’লে—জলহীন মৰুভূমিত পৰ্বতৰ পৰা পৰি, অথবা জ্বলি থকা অগ্নিত প্ৰৱেশ কৰি, নাইবা বিধিপূৰ্বক ‘মহাপ্ৰস্থান’ গ্ৰহণ কৰি হিমালয়ত দেহ ক্ষয় কৰি প্ৰাণত্যাগ কৰিলে মানুহ সকলো পাপৰ পৰা মুক্ত হয়।
व्यास उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse asserts that certain extreme renunciant modes of dying—falling from a barren mountain precipice, entering fire, or performing the Mahāprasthāna—are treated as expiatory, leading to release from accumulated moral faults (kilbiṣa). It reflects a discourse on prāyaścitta and the purificatory power attributed to severe austerity at life’s end.
In Śānti Parva’s instruction on dharma and expiation, Vyāsa describes recognized ‘final acts’ associated with renunciation. He lists three paradigmatic ways of relinquishing the body—fatal fall in a waterless wilderness, entering fire, and the Himalayan Mahāprasthāna—presenting them as means by which a person is said to be freed from sins.