Shloka 24
Ahiṃsā as Threefold Restraint (Mind–Speech–Action) and the Ethics of Consumption
ततो धर्मसमायुक्तः प्राप्तुते जीव एव हि
tato dharmasamāyuktaḥ prāptute jīva eva hi | tasmād dharmayuktaḥ jīvaḥ paramagatiṃ prāpnoti | punaḥ paraloke svakarmabhogaṃ samāpayitvā prāṇī yadā dvitīyaṃ śarīraṃ dhārayati tadā tasya śarīrastha-pañcabhūteṣu sthitā adhiṣṭhātṛdevatāḥ tasya jīvasya śubhāśubhakarmāṇi paśyanti | idānīṃ tvaṃ kim anyac chrotum icchasi ||
Ainsi, c’est bien le soi vivant—uni au dharma—qui atteint le but suprême. Puis, après avoir goûté et épuisé dans l’autre monde les fruits de ses actes, lorsqu’un être revêt un autre corps, les divinités tutélaires établies dans les cinq grands éléments de ce corps observent ses actions, favorables ou néfastes. À présent, que désires-tu entendre encore ?
युधिछिर उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse emphasizes moral causality: the individual self attains the highest state through alignment with dharma, and karmic deeds—good and bad—are accounted for across death, afterlife experience, and rebirth under the oversight of presiding cosmic powers.
Yudhiṣṭhira summarizes a doctrinal point about the soul’s journey: after death the being experiences the fruits of actions in the other world, then takes a new body; at that moment the deities associated with the body’s five elements ‘observe’ the person’s accumulated merits and demerits, and he asks what the listener wants to hear next.