Shloka 93
यस्याहमधिरुह्याडुकं बाल: किल गदाग्रज । तातेत्यवोचं पितरं पितु: पाण्डोर्महात्मन:,“गदाग्रज! कहते हैं, मैं बचपनमें अपने पिता महात्मा पाण्डुके भी पितृतुल्य भीष्मजीकी गोदमें चढ़कर जब उन्हें तात कहकर पुकारता था, उस समय उस बाल्यावस्थामें ही वे मुझसे इस प्रकार कहते थे--“भरतनन्दन! मैं तुम्हारा तात नहीं, तुम्हारे पिताका तात हूँ।' वे ही वृद्ध पितामह मेरे द्वारा मारनेयोग्य कैसे हो सकते हैं?
yasyāham adhiruhyāṅkaṃ bālaḥ kila gadāgraja | tātety avocaṃ pitaraṃ pituḥ pāṇḍor mahātmanaḥ ||
Sanjaya said: “O elder brother of the wielder of the mace, it is said that when I was a child I would climb onto the lap of that very person and call him ‘Father.’ Yet he would correct me even in my boyhood: ‘Son of Bharata, I am not your father; I am your father’s father.’ How, then, can that aged grandsire—who stood to me as a father—ever be fit to be slain by me?”
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse foregrounds the dharmic tension between the duty of war and the duty of reverence toward elders: even when battle demands violence, one’s conscience recoils from harming a revered guardian who functioned as a father.
A speaker recalls childhood intimacy with the aged grandsire—climbing onto his lap and calling him ‘father’—and the grandsire’s correction that he is the father’s father. This memory is used to argue that such a venerable elder cannot be considered a proper target for killing.