Shloka 31
धिग् भीष्म घधिक् च मे मन्दं पितरं मूढचेतसम् । येनाहं वीर्यशुल्केन पण्यस्त्रीव प्रचोदिता,“उसीका यह फल प्राप्त हुआ है कि मैं एक मूर्ख स्त्री-की भाँति भारी आपत्तिमें पड़ गयी हूँ। भीष्मको धिक््कार है, विवेकशून्य हृदयवाले मेरे मन्दबुद्धि पिताको भी धिक्कार है, जिन्होंने पराक्रमका शुल्क नियत करके मुझे बाजारू स्त्रीकी भाँति जनसमूहमें निकलनेकी आज्ञा दी
dhig bhīṣma gadhik ca me mandaṁ pitaraṁ mūḍhacetasaṁ | yenāhaṁ vīryaśulkena paṇyastrīva pracoditā ||
Bhīṣma said: “Shame on Bhīṣma—shame also on my dull-witted father, whose mind lacked discernment. It is because of him—who fixed ‘valor’ as the price—that I was driven forth like a woman for sale, exposed before the public.”
भीष्म उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse condemns treating a woman’s marriage as a public contest priced by ‘valor’ and critiques the moral failure of guardianship: when elders commodify a person for political or martial gain, the resulting dishonor and suffering become an ethical stain on both the agent and the authority who sanctioned it.
Bhīṣma voices intense self-blame and also blames his father for having set a ‘bride-price’ based on prowess, which led to a situation where a woman was compelled into a humiliating, public, quasi-commercial exposure—like merchandise—triggering later conflict and grievance central to the epic’s tensions.