Shloka 31
Adhyāya 17 — Gandhārī’s Vilāpa at Duryodhana’s Body (स्त्रीपर्व, अध्याय १७)
पुण्डरीकनिभा भाति पुण्डरीकान्तरप्रभा । मुखं विमृज्य पुत्रस्य भर्तुश्चैव तपस्विनी,“कमलपुष्पके भीतरी भागकी-सी मनोहर कान्तिवाली मेरी तपस्विनी पुत्रवधू जो प्रफुल्ल कमलके समान सुशोभित हो रही है, कभी अपने पुत्रका मुँह पोंछती है तो कभी अपने पतिका
puṇḍarīkanibhā bhāti puṇḍarīkāntaraprabhā | mukhaṁ vimṛjya putrasya bhartuś caiva tapasvinī |
Vaiśaṃpāyana said: Radiant like a white lotus, with a glow like the light within a lotus, the ascetic woman—ever devoted—kept wiping the face of her son and also of her husband. In the midst of grief, her tender service becomes an ethical image of steadfast familial duty and compassion even amid the devastation of war.
वैशम्पायन उवाच
Educational Q&A
Even in overwhelming sorrow, dharma can appear as simple compassionate action: caring for one’s family with steadiness and tenderness. The lotus imagery elevates such service into a moral ideal—purity and inner light persisting amid suffering.
Vaiśaṃpāyana describes an ascetic, lotus-radiant woman who alternately wipes the face of her son and her husband—an intimate scene of caregiving set within the lamentation-filled aftermath of the Kurukṣetra war in the Strī Parva.