Shloka 5

Devanagari script

हत्वा तु नृपतिं पार्थ अकरिष्य: किमुत्तरम्‌ एवं हि दुर्विदो धर्मो मन्दप्रज्ञैर्विशेषत:,“कुन्तीनन्दन! तुम राजाका वध करनेके पश्चात्‌ क्या करते? इस तरह धर्मका स्वरूप सभीके लिये दुर्विज्ञेय है। विशेषतः उन लोगोंके लिये, जिनकी बुद्धि मन्द है, उसके सूक्ष्म स्वरूपको समझना अत्यन्त कठिन है

Transliteration

hatvā tu nṛpatiṃ pārtha akariṣyaḥ kim uttaram | evaṃ hi durvido dharmo mandaprajñair viśeṣataḥ ||

Translation

Sañjaya said: “O Pārtha, having slain a king, what further course would you take? For in truth the nature of dharma is hard to discern; and especially for those of dull understanding, its subtle workings are exceedingly difficult to grasp.”

Word by Word

• {'hatvā': 'having slain, after killing (absolutive of √han)', 'tu': 'but, indeed', 'nṛpatim': 'the king (accusative singular)', 'pārtha': 'O son of Pṛthā (Arjuna), vocative', 'akariṣyaḥ': 'you would do / you would undertake (2nd person singular, future/conditional sense in context)', 'kim': 'what?', 'uttaram': 'the further step

• what comes next', 'evaṃ': 'thus, in this manner', 'hi': 'indeed, for', 'durvidaḥ (durvido)': 'hard to know, difficult to understand', 'dharmaḥ': 'dharma

• right conduct', 'mandaprajñaiḥ': 'by/for those of dull intellect (instrumental plural)', 'viśeṣataḥ': 'especially, in particular'}

Speaker

संजय उवाच

Characters & Entities

• Sañjaya
• Pārtha (Arjuna)
• nṛpati (a king)

Educational Q&A

What is the core teaching?

The verse stresses that dharma is subtle and difficult to judge, especially for limited understanding; therefore one should be cautious about confident moral claims regarding acts like killing a king and what duty demands afterward.

What is happening in the narrative?

Sañjaya addresses Arjuna (Pārtha) with a probing ethical question—after the act of slaying a king, what would you do next?—and uses it to underline how hard it is to discern the correct course of dharma in wartime dilemmas.