Shloka 4
Dehānta (Cyavana) and Upapatti: Kāśyapa’s Questions and the Siddha’s Account of Death, Pain, and Karmic Re-embodiment
कथं शुभाशुभे चायं कर्मणी स्वकृते नर: । उपभुड्धक्ते क्व वा कर्म विदेहस्यावतिष्ठते,मनुष्य अपने किये हुए शुभाशुभ कर्मोंका फल कैसे भोगता है और शरीर न रहनेपर उसके कर्म कहाँ रहते हैं?
kathaṁ śubhāśubhe cāyaṁ karmaṇī svakṛte naraḥ | upabhuṅkte kva vā karma videhasyāvatiṣṭhate ||
Kāśyapa said: “How does a man come to experience the results of the good and evil actions he himself has done? And when the body is no more, where do those actions ‘remain’—on what basis do they persist?”
काश्यप उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse frames a philosophical problem central to dharma and ethics: actions have moral consequences (śubha/aśubha), and those consequences are experienced by the doer. It asks for the mechanism of karmic continuity—how results reach the agent, and what ‘supports’ karma when the physical body has perished.
Kāśyapa, speaking in a didactic dialogue, poses a probing question about karmic retribution and post-mortem continuity. The inquiry sets up an explanation about how deeds persist as causal potency and how the individual experiences their fruits beyond the mere presence of the gross body.