Shloka 24
Karna Reproves Shalya; Brahmin Reports on Bāhlīkas; Shalya’s Universalizing Rebuttal (कर्ण–शल्य संवादः)
अहो द्यूतस्य निष्ठेयं घोरा सम्प्रति वर्तते । अहो तीव्राणि दु:ःखानि दुर्योधनकृतान्यहम्
aho dyūtasya niṣṭheyam ghorā samprati vartate | aho tīvrāṇi duḥkhāni duryodhana-kṛtāny aham
Sañjaya dit : «Hélas, l’issue terrible de la partie de dés se déploie à présent. Hélas, combien sont âpres les souffrances engendrées par les actes de Duryodhana — des souffrances que nous devons désormais endurer.»
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
Unethical choices—here symbolized by the dyūta (gambling) episode—do not remain isolated events; they mature into severe, collective suffering. The verse highlights moral causality: adharma initiates a chain whose ‘final outcome’ becomes unavoidable when its consequences ripen.
Sañjaya, narrating events to Dhṛtarāṣṭra, reflects with grief that the terrible culmination of the earlier dice-game is now manifesting on the battlefield. He attributes the present intense misery to Duryodhana’s actions, implying that the war’s horrors are the delayed fruit of that earlier wrongdoing.