Shloka 44
स्त्रीपर्व — अध्याय १५: गान्धारी-युधिष्ठिर-संवादः
Gandhārī’s Confrontation and Consolation of Yudhiṣṭhira
मा शुचो न हि शोच्यास्ते संग्रामे निधनं गता: । यथैवाहं तथैव त्वं को नावाश्वासयिष्यति । ममैव हापराधेन कुलमग्रयं विनाशितम्,“जब यह विनाश किसी तरह टल नहीं सकता था, विशेषतः जब सब कुछ होकर समाप्त हो गया, तो अब तुम्हें शोक नहीं करना चाहिये। वे सभी वीर संग्राममें मारे गये हैं, अतः शोक करनेके योग्य नहीं हैं। आज जैसी मैं हूँ, वैसी ही तुम भी हो। हम दोनोंको कौन धीरज बँधायेगा? मेरे ही अपराधसे इस श्रेष्ठ कुल॒का संहार हुआ है”
mā śuco na hi śocyās te saṅgrāme nidhanaṃ gatāḥ | yathaivāhaṃ tathaiva tvaṃ ko nāvāśvāsayiṣyati | mamaiva hāparādhena kulam agryaṃ vināśitam ||
Vaiśaṃpāyana said: “Do not grieve. They are not to be mourned, for they met their end in battle. As I am now, so are you—who, then, will console us? Alas, through my own fault this noble lineage has been destroyed.”
वैशम्पायन उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse frames battlefield death as a fate aligned with the warrior context and urges restraint in grief, while simultaneously acknowledging moral responsibility: consolation is difficult when both parties are equally afflicted, and the speaker’s confession of fault highlights the ethical burden of actions that lead to the ruin of a lineage.
In the Strī Parva’s lamentation setting after the great war, Vaiśaṃpāyana narrates a consolatory statement addressed to a grieving person: the fallen are said to have died in battle and thus are ‘not to be mourned’ in the conventional sense, yet the speaker admits personal culpability for the catastrophic destruction of the noble family line.