Shloka 17
Ghaṭotkaca Slays Alāyudha (Night Battle and Māyā Countermeasures) / घटोत्कचेन अलायुधवधः
यच्च तान् पाण्डवान् द्यूते विषमेण विजित्य ह । प्राव्राजयस्तदारण्ये रौरवाजिनवासस:,इतना ही नहीं, तुमने पाण्डवोंको जूएमें बेईमानीसे जीतकर और मृगचर्ममय वस्त्र पहनाकर उन्हें वनवास दे दिया (इस अधर्मका भी फल तुम्हें भोगना पड़ता है)
yac ca tān pāṇḍavān dyūte viṣameṇa vijitya ha | prāvrājayas tadāraṇye rauravājinavāsasaḥ ||
Sañjaya sprach: „Und du, nachdem du die Pāṇḍavas im Würfelspiel durch unlautere Mittel besiegt hattest, triebst du sie in die Verbannung in den Wald und ließest sie Gewänder aus Hirschfell tragen. Auch die Last dieser dharmawidrigen Tat reift nun zu ihrer Folge für dich heran.“
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
Unrighteous actions—especially deceit and injustice toward others—inevitably bear consequences. The verse frames the cheating in the dice-game and the forced exile as moral causes whose results return upon the perpetrator.
Sañjaya reminds Dhṛtarāṣṭra (implicitly) of the earlier wrongdoing: the Pāṇḍavas were defeated through unfair play in the dice match and then sent to forest exile, reduced to wearing deer-skins—an act now cited as a reason for the present suffering and calamity.