Shloka 21
Strī Parva, Adhyāya 2 — Vidura’s Consolation on Kāla, Karma, and the Limits of Lamentation (विदुरोपदेशः)
पुरुषप्रवर! आप स्वयं ही अपने मनको सान्त्वना देकर शोकका परित्याग कीजिये। आज शोकसे व्याकुल होकर आपको अपने शरीरका त्याग नहीं करना चाहिये ।। मातापितृसहस्राणि पुत्रदारशतानि च । संसारेष्वनुभूतानि कस्य ते कस्य वा वयम्,हमलोगोंने बारंबार संसारमें जन्म लेकर सहस्रों माता-पिता तथा सैकड़ों स्त्री-पुत्रोंके सुखका अनुभव किया है; परंतु आज वे किसके हैं अथवा हम उनमेंसे किसके हैं?
puruṣapravara! āpa svayam eva ātmamanaḥ sāntvayitvā śokaṃ parityajata. adya śokavyākulatayā bhavān śarīratyāgaṃ na kartum arhati. mātāpitr̥sahasrāṇi putradāraśatāni ca saṃsāreṣv anubhūtāni kasya te kasya vā vayam.
Vidura said: “O best of men, console your own mind and abandon grief. Overwhelmed by sorrow today, you should not think of giving up your body. In the course of worldly existence we have again and again been born and have experienced thousands of mothers and fathers and hundreds of sons and wives—yet today, whose are they, and whose are we?”
विदुर उवाच
Educational Q&A
Vidura urges restraint and self-consolation: grief should not drive one to self-destruction. He grounds this counsel in the doctrine of saṃsāra and impermanence—relationships recur across births, so clinging to them as permanent possessions intensifies sorrow; steadiness and dharmic endurance are required.
In the Strī Parva’s mourning context after the great war, Vidura addresses a grief-stricken ‘best of men’ and attempts to prevent him from collapsing into despair. He reframes the loss by reminding him of repeated births and the countless familial ties experienced over time, thereby counseling composure and ethical perseverance.