Shloka 47
Adhyāya 33 — Yudhiṣṭhira’s Post-Conflict Remorse and Inquiry on Āśrama Discipline (शोक-विमर्शः, आश्रम-जिज्ञासा)
अशोच्यास्ते महात्मान: क्षत्रिया: क्षत्रियर्षभ । स्वकर्मभिर्गता नाशं कृतान्तबलमोहिता:
aśocyās te mahātmānaḥ kṣatriyāḥ kṣatriyarṣabha | svakarmabhir gatā nāśaṃ kṛtāntabalamohitāḥ ||
Vyāsa said: “O bull among kṣatriyas, those high-souled warriors are not fit to be mourned. Deluded by the overpowering force of Death (Time), they met destruction through the momentum of their own deeds.”
व्यास उवाच
Educational Q&A
Grief is restrained by insight into karma and the inevitability of Death/Time: warriors who fall in battle meet an end shaped by their own deeds and the ordained course of time, so excessive lamentation is ethically discouraged.
Vyāsa addresses a kṣatriya interlocutor, reframing the deaths of slain warriors: rather than objects of personal sorrow, they are presented as agents who reached their fate through their own karmic trajectory under the compelling power of Kṛtānta (Death/Time).