Shloka 71
Śama-prāptiḥ — Gautamī–Lubdhaka–Pannaga–Mṛtyu–Kāla-saṃvāda
Restraint through the Analysis of Karma and Time
अकरोद् यदयं कर्म तन्नोडर्जुनक चोदकम् | विनाशहेतुर्नान्यो5स्य वध्यते5यं स्वकर्मणा,अर्जुनक! इस बालकने जो कर्म किया है वही इसकी मृत्युमें प्रेरक हुआ है, दूसरा कोई इसके विनाशका कारण नहीं है। यह जीव अपने कर्मसे ही मरता है
akarod yad ayaṁ karma tan noḍarjunaka codakam | vināśahetur nānyo 'sya vadhyate 'yaṁ svakarmaṇā, arjunaka |
Kāla said: “Whatever deed this one has done—this alone has impelled the outcome, O Arjunaka. There is no other cause of his destruction. This being is brought to death by his own action.”
काल उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse asserts moral causality: a being’s suffering and even death arise primarily from its own actions (svakarma), not from an external agent. Kāla frames destruction as the ripening of prior deeds, emphasizing personal responsibility within the moral order.
Kāla (Time/Death personified) addresses Arjunaka and explains that the child’s demise is not caused by someone else’s hostility or intervention; rather, the child’s own past action has become the decisive prompt for the fatal outcome.