Shloka 8
तवापराधात् सुमहान् सपुत्रस्य विशाम्पते । पृथिव्या: प्रक्षयो घोरो यमराष्ट्रविवर्धन:,प्रजानाथ! पुत्रसहित आपके अपराधसे ही यह भूमण्डलका घोर एवं महान् संहार हो रहा है, जो यमलोककी वृद्धि करनेवाला है
tavāparādhāt sumahān saputrasya viśāmpate | pṛthivyāḥ prakṣayo ghoro yamarāṣṭravivardhanaḥ || prajānātha |
Sañjaya said: “O lord of the people, O king of men—because of your wrongdoing, a vast and dreadful destruction of the earth is taking place, involving your sons as well; it is a slaughter that swells the realm of Yama. The ethical burden of this war, and the ruin it brings, is thus laid at your door.”
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
A ruler is morally accountable for the consequences of his choices—especially when attachment to his sons and failure to restrain wrongdoing leads to mass suffering. The verse frames war’s carnage as an ethical result of the king’s aparādha (fault), not merely fate.
Sañjaya addresses Dhṛtarāṣṭra during the Kurukṣetra war, attributing the ongoing catastrophic destruction—killing that ‘increases Yama’s realm’—to Dhṛtarāṣṭra’s culpability, with his sons implicated in the cause and outcome.