Shloka 26
Babhruvāhana’s Lament and Appeal for Expiation (प्रायश्चित्त-याचना)
भो भो पश्यत मे वीरं पितरं ब्राह्मणा भुवि | शयानं वीरशयने मया पुत्रेण पातितम्,हे ब्राह्मणो! देखो, मुझ पुत्रके द्वारा मार गिराये गये मेरे वीर पिता अर्जुन वीरशय्यापर सो रहे हैं
bho bho paśyata me vīraṃ pitaraṃ brāhmaṇā bhuvi | śayānaṃ vīraśayane mayā putreṇa pātitam |
Vaiśaṃpāyana said: “O brāhmaṇas, look—look here upon the earth at my heroic father, lying on a hero’s bed, struck down by me, his own son.” The utterance carries the bitter ethical shock of kin-slaying: the speaker calls witnesses to the inversion of dharma in which a son becomes the agent of a father’s fall, and the ‘hero’s couch’ (vīraśayana) underscores the tragic dignity of the fallen warrior even amid moral rupture.
वैशम्पायन उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse highlights a dharmic inversion: the natural duty of a son to protect and honor his father is shattered, and the speaker forces the community (brāhmaṇas) to witness the moral gravity of that act. Even in collapse, the fallen warrior is accorded the dignity of a ‘hero’s bed,’ suggesting that ethical judgment and heroic status can coexist in tension.
A speaker (reported by Vaiśaṃpāyana) calls out to brāhmaṇas to look at his father lying on the ground on a warrior’s couch, declaring that he himself—the son—has felled him. The scene is framed as public witnessing, intensifying the shame, shock, and ethical consequence of the deed.