Shloka 180
Adhyaya 8 — Harishchandra’s Trial: Truth, the Sale of Family, and Bondage to a Chandala
सोऽप्येतामेव मे वत्सो वयोऽवस्थामुपागतः ।
नीतो यदि न घोरेण कृतान्तेनात्मनो वशम् ॥
so ’py etām eva me vatso vayo ’vasthām upāgataḥ | nīto yadi na ghoreṇa kṛtāntenātmano vaśam ||
Auch mein geliebtes Kind hätte genau dieses Alter erreicht—wäre es nicht in die schreckliche Macht des Kṛtānta (des Todes) hinweggerafft worden.
{ "primaryRasa": "karuna", "secondaryRasa": "shanta", "rasaIntensity": 0, "emotionalArcPosition": "", "moodDescriptors": [] }
FAQs
The verse confronts the contingency of life and the pain of ‘what might have been,’ steering the listener toward acceptance of kāla while maintaining dharmic compassion.
Again, ākhyāna within royal lineage storytelling; its purpose is moral reflection rather than cosmographic enumeration.
‘Vaśa’ (control) of Kṛtānta points to the ultimate sovereignty over embodied existence; spiritually, it urges a turn from dependence on temporal continuities (age, lineage) to the timeless Self.