Shloka 21
Dasyu-maryādā and Buddhi-guided Rāja-nīti (दस्युमर्यादा तथा बुद्धिप्रधान-राजनीति)
ऐसा कहकर पूजनीने अपने दोनों पंजोंसे राजकुमारकी दोनों आँखें फोड़ डालीं। फोड़कर वह आकाशमें स्थिर हो गयी और इस प्रकार बोली-- ।। इच्छयेह कृतं पापं सद्यस्तं चोपसर्पति । कृत॑ प्रतिकृतं येषां न नश्यति शुभाशुभम्,“इस जगत्में स्वेच्छासे जो पाप किया जाता है, उसका फल तत्काल ही कर्ताको मिल जाता है। जिनके पापका बदला मिल जाता है, उनके पूर्वकृत शुभाशुभ कर्म नष्ट नहीं होते हैं
icchayehā kṛtaṃ pāpaṃ sadyas taṃ copasarpati | kṛtaṃ pratikṛtaṃ yeṣāṃ na naśyati śubhāśubham ||
Bhishma said: “A sin committed here out of one’s own will immediately comes back upon the doer. For those whose wrongdoing is met with a corresponding requital, their previously accumulated deeds—whether auspicious or inauspicious—do not thereby get erased.”
भीष्म उवाच
Educational Q&A
Voluntary wrongdoing carries an immediate karmic recoil: the consequence ‘overtakes’ the agent without delay. Even when a wrong is repaid or requited, that does not cancel one’s broader store of past merit and demerit; karmic accounts are not wiped clean merely because a particular act meets a counteraction.
In Bhishma’s discourse on dharma and moral causality, this verse states a principle of karmic immediacy and accountability: intentional sin quickly returns to its author, and the experience of retribution does not erase the residue of earlier good or bad actions.