Shloka 21

Devanagari script

बहुशोणितदिग्धाड़यो मुक्तकेशयो रजस्वला: । एवं कृतोदका भार्या: प्रवेक्ष्यन्ति गजाह्नयम्‌,“जिनके अन्यायसे आज मैं इस दशाको पहुँची हूँ, आजके चौदहवें वर्षमें उनकी स्त्रियाँ भी अपने पति, पुत्र और बन्धु-बान्धवोंके मारे जानेसे उनकी लाशोंके पास लोट-लोटकर रोयेंगी और अपने अंगोंमें रक्त तथा धूल लपेटे, बाल खोले हुए, अपने सगे-सम्बन्धियोंको तिलांजलि दे इसी प्रकार हस्तिनापुरमें प्रवेश करेंगी”

Transliteration

bahuśoṇitadigdhāḍyo muktakeśyo rajasvalāḥ | evaṃ kṛtodakā bhāryāḥ pravekṣyanti gajāhvayam ||

Translation

Vidura foretells a grim reversal: in the fourteenth year, the women of those who have done injustice will enter Hastināpura in that very same plight—rolling beside the corpses of their slain husbands, sons, and kinsmen, wailing without restraint, their bodies smeared with blood and dust, hair dishevelled, and offering the final libation of water (tilāñjali) for their own dead. The warning casts adharma as violence that returns upon itself: cruelty dealt to the innocent ripens into identical suffering within one’s own house.

Word by Word

• {'bahu': 'much, many', 'śoṇita': 'blood', 'digdha': 'smeared, besmeared', 'āḍyaḥ (here as a descriptive plural)': 'abounding in, laden with', 'mukta-keśa': 'with loosened/dishevelled hair (a sign of mourning and distress)', 'rajasvalāḥ': 'women in a state of impurity/menstruation

• by extension, ritually unclean and grief-stricken', 'evaṃ': 'thus, in this manner', 'kṛta-udakāḥ': 'having performed udaka (water-offering)

• having done the funerary libation (tarpana/udakakriyā)', 'bhāryāḥ': 'wives', 'pravekṣyanti': 'they will enter', 'gajāhvayam': 'Gajāhvaya, ‘the city called by the elephant’—Hastināpura'}

Speaker

विदुर उवाच

Characters & Entities

• Vidura
• Gajāhvaya (Hastināpura)
• wives (bhāryāḥ)
• husbands, sons, kinsmen (implied by context of slain relatives)
• corpses (implied by the narrative context)

Educational Q&A

What is the core teaching?

Vidura teaches that adharma—especially injustice toward the innocent—inevitably rebounds upon one’s own family. The verse uses the image of bereaved women entering Hastināpura in ritual impurity and devastation to show that wrongdoing ripens into the same suffering one causes others.

What is happening in the narrative?

Vidura is warning the Kuru court about the consequences of their unjust actions. He prophesies that in the fourteenth year the women of the wrongdoers will mourn beside the bodies of their slain relatives and then enter Hastināpura with dishevelled hair, smeared with blood and dust, having performed funerary water-offerings.