Shloka 11
Kṣātra-Dharma, Daṇḍanīti, and Social Order
Indra–Māndhātṛ Dialogue
अत्र ते वर्तयिष्यामि धर्ममर्थविनिश्चयम् । निर्मयदि वर्तमाने दानवैकार्णवे पुरा
atra te vartayiṣyāmi dharmam arthaviniścayam | nirmadī vartamāne dānavākarṇave purā ||
अब मैं तुम्हें एक धर्ममय आख्यान सुनाऊँगा, जो अर्थ—व्यावहारिक हित और कल्याण—का तात्त्विक निश्चय कराता है। प्राचीन काल में, जब यह जगत् दानव-स्वभावी उच्छृंखलता के समुद्र में डूबकर मर्यादाहीन हो चला था, तब यह उपदेश प्रकट हुआ।
भीष्म उवाच
Educational Q&A
Bhīṣma frames the coming story as a decisive clarification of how artha (practical welfare and aims) must be judged through dharma; when society becomes lawless, only dharma can rightly determine what counts as true benefit.
Bhīṣma announces that he will narrate an ancient dharmic history. He sets the scene as a time when the world had become unruly, metaphorically drowned in an ‘ocean of Dānava-nature,’ preparing the listener for a corrective moral exemplum.