Shloka 18
अश्वत्थामोवाच एवमेव यथा<5त्थ त्वं मातुलेह न संशय: । तैस्तु पूर्वमयं सेतु: शतधा विदलीकृत:
Aśvatthāmovāca—evam eva yathāttha tvaṃ mātuleha na saṃśayaḥ | tais tu pūrvam ayaṃ setuḥ śatadhā vidalīkṛtaḥ ||
Aśvatthāmā said: “Exactly so—just as you say, uncle; there is no doubt about it. Yet it was they who first shattered this very ‘bridge’ of moral restraint—this boundary of dharma—into a hundred pieces.”
कृप उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse frames dharma as a protective boundary (setu). Aśvatthāmā argues that once moral limits are broken, further wrongdoing is rationalized as retaliation—highlighting how ethical collapse in war breeds self-justifying violence.
In the Sauptika Parva’s aftermath of the great war, Aśvatthāmā responds to Kṛpa, agreeing with him but insisting that the Pāṇḍavas had already violated the norms of righteous conduct, thereby ‘shattering’ the moral boundary first.