Shloka 33
गोप्रदानगुणाः तथा कपिलागोविधानम्
Merits of Cow-Gift and the Origin-Account of Kapilā Cows
ब्राह्मणस्य फल हीदं क्षत्रियस्य तु वै शूणु,यह ब्राह्मणके लिये फल बताया गया। अब क्षत्रियको मिलनेवाले फलका वर्णन सुनो। यदि क्षत्रिय इसी प्रकार पाँच वर्षोतक गौकी आराधना करे तो उसे वही फल प्राप्त होता है। उससे आधे समयमें वैश्यको और उससे भी आधे समयमें शूद्रकों उसी फलकी प्राप्ति बतायी गयी है
pitāmaha uvāca | brāhmaṇasya phalaṃ hy idaṃ kṣatriyasya tu vai śṛṇu | yad brāhmaṇāya phalaṃ proktaṃ tad idaṃ kṣatriyo 'pi labhate | yadi kṣatriya evaṃvidhaṃ pañca-varṣāṇi gāṃ samārādhayet sa tad eva phalaṃ prāpnoti | tasmād ardha-kālena vaiśyaḥ, tasmād api ardha-kālena śūdraḥ tad eva phalaṃ prāpnotīti ||
Bhishma said: “This is the fruit prescribed for a Brahmin; now hear of the fruit for a Kshatriya. If a Kshatriya worships and serves the cow in the same manner for five years, he attains that very same reward. A Vaishya is said to gain it in half that time, and a Shudra in half of that again.”
पितामह उवाच
Educational Q&A
Service and reverence toward the cow is presented as a powerful dharmic practice whose spiritual fruit is available to all varnas; the passage, however, expresses a traditional varna-based scaling in the time required to reach the same merit.
Bhishma, speaking as an elder authority on dharma, continues a didactic explanation of the rewards of go-ārādhana (honoring/serving the cow), specifying how long different social orders must practice to obtain the same promised result.