Shloka 3
Śvetadvīpa-varṇana and Śāstra-pravartana (Śānti Parva 322)
दुर्भिक्षादेव दुर्भिक्षं क्लेशात् क्लेशं भयाद् भयम् । मृतेभ्य: प्रमृता यान्ति दरिद्रा: पापकर्मिण:
durbhikṣād eva durbhikṣaṃ kleśāt kleśaṃ bhayād bhayam | mṛtebhyaḥ pramṛtā yānti daridrāḥ pāpakarmiṇaḥ ||
Bhīṣma said: From famine they fall into further famine; from hardship into more hardship; from fear into fear again. Poor people who commit sinful deeds become, as it were, more dead than the dead—sinking into a living death through an unbroken chain of misery born of their own wrongdoing.
भीष्म उवाच
Educational Q&A
Bhīṣma teaches that unethical action (pāpa) compounds suffering: scarcity, distress, and fear reinforce one another, and the sinful poor can fall into a condition like a living death. The verse warns that adharma does not relieve hardship; it deepens it through karmic and social consequences.
In Śānti Parva, Bhīṣma instructs Yudhiṣṭhira on dharma and governance. Here he describes the cascading nature of misery—famine leading to more famine, hardship to more hardship, fear to more fear—especially when people act wrongly, highlighting the need for righteous conduct and protective social policy.