Shloka 21
Dasyu-maryādā and Buddhi-guided Rāja-nīti (दस्युमर्यादा तथा बुद्धिप्रधान-राजनीति)
ऐसा कहकर पूजनीने अपने दोनों पंजोंसे राजकुमारकी दोनों आँखें फोड़ डालीं। फोड़कर वह आकाशमें स्थिर हो गयी और इस प्रकार बोली-- ।।
icchayehā kṛtaṃ pāpaṃ sadyas taṃ copasarpati | kṛtaṃ pratikṛtaṃ yeṣāṃ na naśyati śubhāśubham ||
Bhīṣma dit : «Le péché commis ici de son plein gré retombe aussitôt sur celui qui l’accomplit. Pour ceux dont la faute reçoit une rétribution correspondante, les actes jadis amassés—heureux ou funestes—ne s’en trouvent pas effacés.»
भीष्म उवाच
Educational Q&A
Voluntary wrongdoing carries an immediate karmic recoil: the consequence ‘overtakes’ the agent without delay. Even when a wrong is repaid or requited, that does not cancel one’s broader store of past merit and demerit; karmic accounts are not wiped clean merely because a particular act meets a counteraction.
In Bhishma’s discourse on dharma and moral causality, this verse states a principle of karmic immediacy and accountability: intentional sin quickly returns to its author, and the experience of retribution does not erase the residue of earlier good or bad actions.