Shloka 27
Chapter 137: Yuyudhāna (Sātyaki) Slays Somadatta; Yudhiṣṭhira Redirected from Droṇa
स्वयं पीत्वा महाराज कालकूटं सुदुर्जरम् । तस्येदानीं फल कृत्स्नमवाप्लुहि नरोत्तम,नरश्रेष्ठ महाराज! जिसको पचाना अत्यन्त कठिन है, उस कालकूट विषको स्वयं पीकर अब उसके सारे परिणामोंको आप ही भोगिये
saṃjaya uvāca |
svaṃyaṃ pītvā mahārāja kālakūṭaṃ sudurjaram |
tasyedānīṃ phalaṃ kṛtsnam avāpluhi narottama ||
Sanjaya said: “O great king, having yourself drunk the dread Kālakūṭa poison—so hard to digest—now, O best of men, you must undergo its entire consequence. Having chosen the act, you must now bear its full fruit.”
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
One must accept full responsibility for one’s chosen actions: when a harmful course is willingly embraced, its bitter results cannot be shifted onto others. The verse uses the metaphor of drinking deadly poison to stress the inevitability and totality of karmic consequence.
Sanjaya addresses King Dhṛtarāṣṭra with a sharp moral reminder: by his own decisions and complicity in the unfolding conflict, he has ‘drunk poison’—and now must face the complete fallout of those choices as events in the war reach their painful outcomes.