Shloka 23
Yudhiṣṭhira’s Remorse and Vyāsa’s Teaching on Impermanence (Śoka-nivāraṇa)
शोचामि पृथिवीं हीनां पञ्चभि: पर्वतैरिव । जैसे पृथ्वी पाँच पर्वतोंसे हीन हो जाय, उसी प्रकार अपने पाँचों पुत्रोंसे हीन होकर दुःखसे आतुर हुई द्रौपदीके लिये भी मुझे निरन्तर शोक बना रहता है ।। सो5हमागस्कर: पाप: पृथिवीनाशकारक:
śocāmi pṛthivīṁ hīnāṁ pañcabhiḥ parvatair iva | so ’ham āgaskaraḥ pāpaḥ pṛthivīnāśakārakaḥ ||
Yudhiṣṭhira said: “I grieve for the earth, as though she were bereft of her five mountains. In the same way, I remain in unceasing sorrow for Draupadī, who is tormented by anguish at being deprived of her five sons. Thus I—guilty, sinful, a cause of ruin to the realm—lament my own failing in dharma and kingship.”
युधिछिर उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse frames moral responsibility after catastrophe: a ruler must not treat loss as abstract fate but as a personal ethical burden. Yudhiṣṭhira’s grief becomes self-scrutiny—acknowledging guilt and the duty to restore order (dharma) after the ruin brought by conflict.
In Śānti Parva, Yudhiṣṭhira is overwhelmed by remorse after the war. Here he compares the earth bereft of five mountains to Draupadī bereft of her five sons, and he condemns himself as culpable—someone whose actions have contributed to the realm’s devastation and to Draupadī’s suffering.