Shloka 31
Ahiṃsā as Threefold Restraint (Mind–Speech–Action) and the Ethics of Consumption
युधिषछ्िर उवाच आखायात॑ मे भगवता गर्भ: संजायते यथा । यथा जातस्तु पुरुष: प्रपद्यति तदुच्यताम्
Yudhiṣṭhira uvāca: ākhyātaṁ me bhagavatā garbhaḥ saṁjāyate yathā | yathā jātas tu puruṣaḥ prapadyati tad ucyatām ||
Yudhiṣṭhira said: “Revered sir, you have explained to me how the embryo comes into being. Now please tell me how a man, once born, again falls into bondage—how he becomes entangled in the conditions that bind him.”
युधिषछ्िर उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse frames a moral-spiritual inquiry: understanding birth is incomplete without understanding how a person becomes bound again—through entanglement in actions, desires, and their consequences. It sets up instruction on the causes of bondage and the path to avoid it.
In Anuśāsana Parva’s didactic dialogue, Yudhiṣṭhira, having heard an explanation of embryonic formation, asks the revered teacher to continue by explaining the next stage: how the born human being becomes ensnared in worldly bondage.