Shloka 7
युधिष्ठिरस्य कृष्णार्जुनादि-समाश्वासनम्
Yudhiṣṭhira’s reassurance and praise of Kṛṣṇa, Arjuna, Bhīma, and Sātyaki
न जानीषे पुरा त्वं तु गृह्नन्नक्षान् दुरोदरे । शरा होते भविष्यन्ति दारुणाशीविषोपमा:,“क्या पहले तुम जूएमें पासे उठाते समय नहीं जानते थे कि ये एक दिन भयंकर विषधर सर्पोके समान विनाशकारी बाण बन जायाँगे
na jānīṣe purā tvaṃ tu gṛhṇann akṣān dur-odare | śarā hote bhaviṣyanti dāruṇāśīviṣopamāḥ ||
Sañjaya said: “When you once took up the dice in that ruinous game, did you not foresee that they would one day turn into arrows—cruel and deadly, like venomous serpents? The very act of gambling that violated righteousness has now ripened into the violence and suffering of war.”
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
Unrighteous choices made in moments of desire—here, the taking up of dice in a destructive gamble—mature into far-reaching harm. The verse frames war not as an isolated event but as the karmic and ethical consequence of earlier adharma, warning rulers to foresee outcomes and restrain vice.
Sañjaya, reporting to Dhṛtarāṣṭra, uses a sharp metaphor: the dice once grasped in the fatal gambling match have ‘become’ arrows on the battlefield. He links the origin of the Kurukṣetra catastrophe to the earlier dice-game, emphasizing culpability and the chain of causation.