Shloka 19

Prāyaścitta-vidhāna: Tapas, Dāna, Vrata, and Proportional Expiation (प्रायश्चित्तविधानम्)

Devanagari script

जातिश्रेण्यधिवासानां कुलधर्माश्चव सर्वतः । वर्जयन्ति च ये धर्म तेषां धर्मो न विद्यते

Transliteration

jātiśreṇyadhivāsānāṁ kuladharmāś caiva sarvataḥ | varjayanti ca ye dharma teṣāṁ dharmo na vidyate ||

Translation

Vyāsa dit : Ceux qui, de toutes les manières, abandonnent les devoirs propres à leur naissance et à leur ordre social, à leur condition et à leur mode de vie, ainsi que les obligations héritées de leur lignée—et qui rejettent jusqu’au dharma lui-même—n’ont plus de dharma auquel se référer. Pour de tels êtres, aucune expiation ni rite de redressement ne peut réellement rendre la pureté, car le sol même de l’ordre moral a été refusé.

Word by Word

• {'jāti': 'birth-group

• caste/community by birth', 'śreṇī': 'guild

• class or corporate social grouping', 'adhivāsa': 'dwelling

• settled way of life (contextually: one’s established station)', 'kuladharma': 'family duty

• ancestral code of conduct', 'sarvataḥ': 'entirely

• in every respect', 'varjayanti': 'they abandon

• they exclude', 'dharma': 'duty

• sustaining order', 'teṣām': 'for them

• of those people', 'na vidyate': 'does not exist

Speaker

व्यास उवाच

Characters & Entities

• Vyāsa

Educational Q&A

What is the core teaching?

If a person rejects the foundational duties tied to social identity (jāti/śreṇī), life-situation (adhivāsa), and family tradition (kuladharma), and even abandons dharma as a principle, then there remains no moral framework through which expiation can operate; reform presupposes acceptance of dharma.

What is happening in the narrative?

In the Śānti Parva’s instruction on righteous conduct, Vyāsa states a strict ethical principle: deliberate abandonment of one’s rightful duties and of dharma itself places a person outside the remedial scope of prāyaścitta (expiation), because the person has renounced the very authority that makes correction meaningful.