Shloka 21
Śulka, Kanyā, and Dauhitra-Riktha: Discourse on Bride-Price and Inheritance Rights (शुल्क-कन्या-दौहित्र-रिक्थविचारः)
इस प्रकार एक-दूसरेसे स्पर्धा रखते हुए उन दोनोंमें शपथ खानेकी नौबत आ गयी। फिर तो सहसा विपुलको लक्ष्य करके वे दोनों इस प्रकार बोले-- ।।
itthaṁ paraspara-spardhāṁ kurvāṇayor ubhayor api śapatha-grahaṇasya avasaro jātaḥ | tataḥ sahasā vipulaṁ lakṣya kṛtvā tau evam ūcatuḥ— āvayor anṛtaṁ prāha yas tasya abhūd dvijasya vai | vipulasya pare loke yā gatiḥ sā bhaved iti |
Thus, as the two kept competing with one another, the situation came to the point of taking an oath. Then, suddenly fixing their attention on the brahmin Vipula, they declared: “Whichever of us has spoken falsehood—let that person attain the very same fate in the next world that is destined for the brahmin Vipula.”
भीष्म उवाच
Educational Q&A
Truthfulness is treated as a binding moral absolute: to lie is to incur severe karmic consequence, so severe that one may accept an oath tying one’s fate to a feared or weighty posthumous destiny.
Two rivals, escalating their dispute, reach the point of swearing an oath. They invoke the brahmin Vipula as the reference for the oath’s penalty, declaring that whichever of them has lied should receive Vipula’s destined afterlife outcome.