Shloka 65
Trita in the Well (Udapāna-kathā) — Balarāma’s Tīrtha Observances
ओषधीनां क्षये जाते प्राणिनामपि संक्षय:
oṣadhīnāṃ kṣaye jāte prāṇinām api saṃkṣayaḥ
Vaiśampāyana said: When medicinal herbs are exhausted, living beings too fall into decline—life itself diminishes as its sustaining remedies disappear. The line underscores a moral ecology: when the supports of health and balance are destroyed, suffering spreads beyond the immediate loss and threatens the very continuity of life.
वैशम्पायन उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse teaches interdependence: when the natural and medicinal supports of life are destroyed, the harm does not remain local—living beings themselves decline. Ethically, it warns that violence and neglect that ruin sustaining resources amplify suffering and mortality.
Vaiśampāyana states a causal observation: the depletion of healing herbs leads to the decline of creatures. In the broader war context of the Shalya Parva, it functions as a reflection on how devastation spreads—damage to resources and remedies worsens the fate of the wounded and the vulnerable.