Shloka 40
Atithi-prāpti and the Brāhmaṇa’s Deliberation on Triadic Dharma (अतिथिप्राप्तिः धर्मत्रयविचारश्च)
योडसौ त्वयाभिनिर्दिष्टो ह्धिकारो<र्थचिन्तक: । परिपाल्य: कथं तेन साहंकारेण कर्तृणा
yo 'sau tvayābhinirdiṣṭo 'dhikāro 'rthacintakaḥ | paripālyaḥ kathaṃ tena sāhaṃkāreṇa kartṛṇā ||
Vaiśampāyana said: “O Blessed Lord, O Grandfather! You are of great power; you are the creator of us all. The duty and role by which each of us is to be engaged—and that purposeful, welfare-bearing authority you have prescribed—how can it truly be upheld by an agent who acts with ego, claiming ‘I am the doer’?”
वैशम्पायन उवाच
Educational Q&A
Rightful duty (adhikāra) is sustained not merely by external assignment but by inner disposition; egoistic doership (ahaṃkāra-kartṛtva) undermines faithful observance of dharma because it replaces service to the prescribed order with self-assertion.
In the Śānti Parva’s instructional setting, the speaker (reported by Vaiśampāyana) raises a doubt: if roles and duties are divinely/authoritatively prescribed for beings, how can a person who acts with ego and the sense of ‘I am the doer’ properly carry out and preserve that prescribed duty?