Shloka 21
चिरकारि-उपाख्यानम् / The Exemplum of Cirakārī: Deliberation Before Irreversible Action
यो<न्यस्य स्यादुपपति: स कं किं वक्तुमरहति । यदन्यस्य तत: कुर्यान्न मृष्येदिति मे मति:,जो स्वयं दूसरेके घरमें उपपति (जार) बनकर जाता है--परायी स्त्रीके साथ व्यभिचार करता है, वह दूसरेको वैसा ही कर्म करते देख किससे क्या कह सकता है? यदि दूसरेकी उसी प्रवृत्तिके कारण वह निन्दा करे तो वह पुरुष उसकी निन्दाको नहीं सह सकता-ऐसा मेरा विश्वास है
yo 'nyasya syād upapatiḥ sa kaṃ kiṃ vaktum arhati | yad anyasya tataḥ kuryān na mṛṣyed iti me matiḥ ||
Bhishma said: “A man who becomes another’s paramour—who commits adultery with another man’s wife—has no standing to admonish anyone. If he were to censure another for the very conduct he himself practices, he would not be able to endure the reproach that would rightly fall back upon him; such is my conviction.”
भीष्म उवाच
Educational Q&A
Moral authority depends on personal conduct: one who himself commits adultery cannot credibly condemn the same fault in others, and such hypocrisy rebounds as unbearable reproach.
In the Shanti Parva’s instruction on dharma and right conduct, Bhishma offers a pointed ethical maxim: a person engaged in illicit relations lacks the standing to judge or lecture others for similar behavior.