Shloka 17
तथान्तो विहितस्तेन स्वयमेव महात्मना | तूने जो कुन्तीकुमार अर्जुनपर नरश्रेष्ठ भीष्मके वधका दोष लगाया है, वह भी व्यर्थ ही है; क्योंकि महात्मा भीष्मने स्वयं ही उसी प्रकार अपनी मृत्युका विधान किया था ।। १६ ६ || तस्यापि तव सोदर्यो निहन्ता पापकृत्तम:
tathānto vihitas tena svayam eva mahātmanā | tasyāpi tava sodaryo nihantā pāpakṛttamaḥ ||
Sañjaya said: “Thus, that end was ordained by him—by the great-souled Bhīṣma himself. And as for you, even your own brother is the slayer, the most sinful of doers.”
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse frames Bhīṣma’s fall as something he himself had already ‘ordained’—highlighting personal agency and the moral complexity of blame in war. It also underscores ethical accountability: even when events seem fated, the doer of harm (here, a ‘brother’ figure) bears moral weight.
Sañjaya comments on the circumstances of Bhīṣma’s death, stating that Bhīṣma himself had set the terms of his end. He then points to the killer being ‘your own brother’ and brands him as a grievous sinner—intensifying the tragic irony and moral condemnation within the battlefield narrative.