Shloka 19
“तुम्हें वरूणके पाशसे बाँधा गया, वज़से घायल किया गया तथा तुम्हारी स्त्री और धनका भी अपहरण कर लिया गया; फिर भी बोलो, तुम्हें शोक कैसे नहीं होता है? ।। नष्टश्रीविभव भ्रष्टो यन्न शोचसि दुष्करम् । त्रैलोक्यराज्यनाशे हि को<न्यो जीवितुमुत्सहेत्
tvaṁ varuṇasya pāśena baddho vajreṇa ca tāḍitaḥ | bhāryā-dhanaṁ ca te hṛtaṁ tathāpi brūhi kathaṁ na śocasi || naṣṭaśrī-vibhavo bhraṣṭo yan na śocasi duṣkaram | trailokya-rājya-nāśe hi ko 'nyo jīvitum utsahet ||
Bhīṣma said: “You have been bound by Varuṇa’s noose, struck down by the thunderbolt, and even your wife and wealth have been carried off. Tell me then—how can you not grieve? That you, fallen from prosperity and power, do not lament is a hard thing indeed; for if even sovereignty over the three worlds were lost, who else would still have the will to go on living?”
भीष्म उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse highlights extraordinary steadiness of mind: even after severe losses—bondage, injury, and the abduction of wife and wealth—one may remain unshaken. Bhīṣma frames such non-grieving as rare, implicitly pointing to inner resilience and detachment from external fortune as a high ethical attainment.
Bhīṣma addresses a person who has suffered extreme reversals—divine restraint (Varuṇa’s noose), a devastating blow (the thunderbolt), and the loss of family and property. He expresses astonishment that the person does not grieve, arguing that even the loss of universal sovereignty would normally crush one’s will to live.