Mahabharata — Anushasana Parva, Shloka 53
Ahiṃsā as Threefold Restraint (Mind–Speech–Action) and the Ethics of Consumption
प्राक् श्वा भवति राजेन्द्र तत: क्रव्यात्तत: खर: । ततः प्रेत: परिक्लिष्ट: पश्चाज्जायति ब्राह्मण:
yudhiṣṭhira uvāca | prāk śvā bhavati rājendra tataḥ kravyāttataḥ kharaḥ | tataḥ pretaḥ parikliṣṭaḥ paścāj jāyati brāhmaṇaḥ ||
Yudhiṣṭhira said: “O king of kings, first he becomes a dog; then a flesh-eating being, a rākṣasa; then a donkey. Thereafter, having died and, as a tormented preta, endured many sufferings, he is born again in a brāhmaṇa womb.” The verse stresses the grave wrong of a foolish disciple’s offense against his teacher, portraying a sequence of degrading births and post-mortem anguish before a return to human (brāhmaṇa) birth.
युधिछिर उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse teaches that disrespecting or harming one’s teacher (guru-aparādha) is a grave ethical violation with severe karmic consequences, leading to degrading births and suffering in the preta state before eventual return to human birth.
Yudhiṣṭhira addresses a king (likely Bhīṣma’s interlocutor contextually) and states a karmic sequence: a foolish disciple who offends his teacher is reborn successively as a dog, then a flesh-eating being, then a donkey; after death he suffers as a preta, and only afterward attains birth as a brāhmaṇa.