Shloka 26
Chapter 137: Yuyudhāna (Sātyaki) Slays Somadatta; Yudhiṣṭhira Redirected from Droṇa
स्वयं वैरं महत् कृत्वा पुत्राणां वचने स्थित: । उच्यमानो न गृल्लीषे मर्त्य: पथ्यमिवौषधम्,पुत्रोंकी हाँ-में-हाँ मिलाकर आपने स्वयं ही इस महान् वैरकी नींव डाली है और जब इसे मिटानेके लिये आपसे किसीने कोई बात कही, तब आपने उसे नहीं माना, ठीक उसी तरह, जैसे मरणासन्न मनुष्य हितकारक औषध नहीं ग्रहण करता है
saṃjaya uvāca | svayaṃ vairaṃ mahat kṛtvā putrāṇāṃ vacane sthitaḥ | ucyamāno na gṛhṇīṣe martyaḥ pathyam ivauṣadham ||
Sañjaya said: “By echoing your sons’ wishes, you yourself laid the foundation of this great enmity. And when people spoke to you in order to end it, you would not accept their counsel—just as a mortal on the verge of death refuses a wholesome medicine.”
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse warns that moral and practical counsel must be accepted when offered; stubbornly clinging to partisan family pressure (here, the sons’ demands) creates destructive enmity, and rejecting corrective advice is likened to a dying person refusing beneficial medicine.
Sanjaya rebukes Dhritarashtra, saying that by aligning himself with his sons’ words he himself caused the great feud, and that when others tried to dissuade him and end the conflict, he refused to heed them—thereby allowing the war’s calamity to unfold.