Shloka 45
दंशनं चाहिभि: कृष्णैर्दाहं च जतुवेश्मनि । द्यूतेन राज्यहरणमरण्ये वसतिश्न या
daṁśanaṁ cāhibhiḥ kṛṣṇair dāhaṁ ca jatuveśmani | dyūtena rājyaharaṇam araṇye vasatiś ca yā ||
Sañjaya said: “There was the biting by dark serpents, and the burning in the house of lac; there was the loss of the kingdom through the game of dice, and the enforced dwelling in the forest. These remembered wrongs form the moral background of the war.”
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse recalls a sequence of grave wrongs—attempted murder (serpents, lac-house fire), political dispossession through deceit (dice), and forced exile—showing how sustained adharma corrodes legitimacy and makes violent conflict morally and socially inevitable.
Sañjaya summarizes earlier atrocities and humiliations suffered by the Pandavas: the plot involving serpents and the lac-house, the loss of their kingdom in the dice match, and their forest exile—events that explain the deep grievance and ethical stakes behind the ongoing war.