Shloka 37
युधिष्ठिरस्य अर्जुनप्रेषण-युक्तिवर्णनम् | Yudhiṣṭhira’s Rationale for Sending Arjuna and Request to Dhaumya
रुद्रावर्त ततो गच्छेत् तीर्थसेवी नराधिप । तत्र स्नात्वा नरो राजन् स्वर्गलोक॑ च गच्छति,नरेश्वर! तदनन्तर तीर्थसेवी पुरुष रुद्रावर्ततीर्थमें जाय। राजन! वहाँ स्नान करके मनुष्य स्वर्गलोकमें जाता है
rudrāvarta tato gacchet tīrthasevī narādhipa | tatra snātvā naro rājan svargalokaṃ ca gacchati || nareśvara | tad-anantaraṃ tīrthasevī puruṣa rudrāvarta-tīrthaṃ yāyāt | rājan | tatra snātvā manuṣyaḥ svargalokaṃ gacchati ||
Ghūlastya said: “Then, O lord of men, the pilgrim should proceed to the sacred ford called Rudrāvarta. O King, having bathed there, a person attains the heavenly world. O ruler of men, thereafter the devoted pilgrim should go to the Rudrāvarta tīrtha; bathing there, one reaches heaven.”
घुलस्त्य उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse teaches that disciplined pilgrimage—specifically visiting and bathing at a prescribed tīrtha—functions as a purifying religious act that yields spiritual merit, expressed here as attainment of heaven.
A speaker named Ghūlastya instructs a king on the sequence of a tīrtha-yātrā: the pilgrim should go next to the Rudrāvarta sacred ford, and bathing there is said to grant the fruit of reaching Svargaloka.