Shloka 16
अथवा य उपाध्याय: क्रतोस्तस्य भविष्यति । सर्पसत्रविधानज्ञो राजकार्यहिते रत:,“अथवा जो उस यज्ञके आचार्य होंगे, जिन्हें सर्पयज्ञकी विधिका ज्ञान हो और जो राजाके कार्य एवं हितमें लगे रहते हों, उन्हें कोई सर्प जाकर डँस ले। फिर वे मर जायाँगे। यज्ञ करानेवाले आचार्यके मर जानेपर वह यज्ञ अपने-आप बंद हो जायगा
athavā ya upādhyāyaḥ kratos tasya bhaviṣyati | sarpasatravidhānajño rājakāryahite rataḥ ||
Or else, the officiating teacher of that sacrifice—one who knows the proper procedure of the serpent-sacrifice and is devoted to the king’s work and welfare—may be bitten by a serpent and die. With the death of the presiding priest, the rite would collapse of itself. The passage underscores a grim, strategic ethic: disrupting a harmful enterprise can be achieved not only by confronting the king directly, but by removing the expert whose knowledge sustains the ritual’s power.
शेष उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse highlights how power can reside in specialized ritual knowledge: removing the expert who sustains an unjust or dangerous undertaking can cause it to fail without direct confrontation. It raises ethical tension between protecting the many and harming an individual, pointing to the moral complexity of countering destructive actions.
Śeṣa proposes an alternative way to halt the serpent-sacrifice: if the officiating priest—skilled in the rite and committed to the king’s interests—were killed by a serpent’s bite, the sacrifice would naturally come to a stop because its guiding authority and technical competence would be gone.