Shloka 243
Karna Reproves Shalya; Brahmin Reports on Bāhlīkas; Shalya’s Universalizing Rebuttal (कर्ण–शल्य संवादः)
सोढा घोराणि बहुश: शल्यभूतानि संजय । अहो! द्यूतक्रीडाका यह घोर परिणाम इस समय प्रकट हुआ है। संजय! आश्चर्य है कि मैंने दुर्योधनके कारण बहुत-से तीव्र एवं भयंकर दुःख
soḍhā ghorāṇi bahuśaḥ śalyabhūtāni sañjaya | aho dyūtakrīḍākāyaḥ ghoraḥ pariṇāmaḥ asmin samaye prakaṭaḥ | sañjaya āścaryam etat yat mayā duryodhanakāraṇāt bahūni tīvra-bhayānakāni duḥkhāni kaṇṭakavat kaṣamāṇāni soḍhāni |
Sañjaya said: “I have endured, again and again, many dreadful sufferings—pains that have become like barbs lodged within. Alas, the terrible consequence of that gambling has now revealed itself at this very moment. Sañjaya, it is astonishing: because of Duryodhana I have borne countless sharp and fearful griefs, stinging like thorns.”
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
Actions driven by greed and adharma—here symbolized by the dice-game—ripen into unavoidable suffering. The verse underscores moral causality: a single unethical choice can expand into repeated, thorn-like pains for many.
In the midst of the war’s grim unfolding, Sañjaya reflects on how the present catastrophe is the visible fruition of the earlier gambling episode, and he attributes the chain of agonies to Duryodhana’s role in that wrongdoing.