Shloka 18
उद्योगपर्व — अध्याय ८१: कृष्णस्य दूतप्रयाणम्
Udyoga Parva, Chapter 81: Krishna Sets Out as Envoy
यथावध्ये वध्यमाने भवेद् दोषो जनार्दन | स वध्यस्यावधे दृष्ट इति धर्मविदो विदु:
yathāvadhe vadhyamāne bhaved doṣo janārdana | sa vadhyasyāvadhe dṛṣṭa iti dharmavido viduḥ ||
Vaiśampāyana said: “O Janārdana, if any fault is incurred when one kills a person who is to be slain, that very fault is understood by the knowers of dharma to lie in the killing of the one who is not to be slain. In the case of executing the truly punishable, no blame is held to attach.”
वैशम्पायन उवाच
Educational Q&A
Moral blame (doṣa) is not attributed to the act of killing when it is the rightful execution of one who is truly punishable (vadhya); the blame belongs to killing someone who is not punishable. The verse frames violence within a dharma-based distinction between just punishment and wrongful killing.
Vaiśampāyana states a dharma principle while addressing Janārdana (Kṛṣṇa): in deliberations surrounding conflict and retribution, the tradition’s dharma-knowers hold that fault is seen in slaying the undeserving, not in the rightful slaying of the deserving.