Shloka 2
Udyoga-parva Adhyāya 3 — Sātyaki on Inner Disposition, Legitimacy, and Coercive Readiness
सन्ति वै पुरुषा: शूरा: सन्ति कापुरुषास्तथा । उभावेतौ दृढौ पक्षौ दृश्येते पुरुषान् प्रति
santi vai puruṣāḥ śūrāḥ santi kāpuruṣās tathā | ubhāvetau dṛḍhau pakṣau dṛśyete puruṣān prati ||
Vaiśampāyana dit : «En vérité, il est des hommes vraiment braves, et il en est aussi de lâches. Ces deux dispositions fermes — le courage et la couardise — se voient parmi les humains.»
वैशम्पायन उवाच
Educational Q&A
Human conduct tends to fall into two stable moral-psychological patterns—courage and cowardice. The verse highlights that ethical life and decision-making, especially in crisis, reveal which disposition has taken root in a person.
The narrator Vaiśampāyana makes a general observation about human types—brave and cowardly—setting a moral frame for the choices and stances that characters will take in the tense pre-war deliberations of the Udyoga Parva.