Shloka 21
मार्जारकुक्कुटच्छागश्ववराहविहंगमान् पोषयन् नरकं याति तम् एव द्विजसत्तम
mārjārakukkuṭacchāgaśvavarāhavihaṃgamān poṣayan narakaṃ yāti tam eva dvijasattama
হে দ্বিজশ্রেষ্ঠ! যে ব্যক্তি বিড়াল, মোরগ, ছাগল, কুকুর, শূকর এবং পাখি পালন করে, সে সেই একই নরকে গমন করে।
Sage Parāśara (in instruction to Maitreya)
Speaker: Parasara
Topic: Sins connected with rearing animals for harm/sport/slaughter and their naraka results
Teaching: Ethical
Quality: authoritative
Concept: Sustaining animals with the intention of harm—whether for fighting, hunting, or slaughter—constitutes complicity in violence and leads to the same naraka consequence.
Vedantic Theme: Dharma
Application: Practice compassionate stewardship of animals; avoid entertainment or profit models built on animal suffering; support non-harmful livelihoods.
Vishishtadvaita: All beings are modes within the Lord’s embodied cosmos; cruelty toward them violates dharmic service and invites karmic reaction within His just order.
FAQs
This verse treats certain animal-keeping—when tied to harm, exploitation, or slaughter—as a Kali-yuga marker that produces severe karmic results, including descent to naraka.
He frames karma as immediate moral causality: sustaining practices that enable violence becomes participation in that violence, and therefore ripens as suffering in hellish states.
Even without naming Vishnu directly, the verse presumes a Vishnu-governed moral cosmos where dharma and adharma are objectively real and sovereignly enforced through karmic law.