Shloka 19
Gandhārī’s Lament for Bhūriśravas and Śakuni
Book 11, Chapter 24
अयं स रसनोत्कर्षी पीनस्तनविमर्दन: । नाभ्यूरूजघनस्पर्शी नीवीविस्नंसन: कर:,“यह वही हाथ है, जो हमारी करधनीको खींच लेता, उभरे हुए स्तनोंका मर्दन करता, नाभि, ऊरु और जघन प्रदेशको छूता और नीवीका बन्धन सरका दिया करता था
ayaṃ sa rasanotkarṣī pīnastanavimardanaḥ | nābhyūrūjaghanasparśī nīvīvisnaṃsanaḥ karaḥ ||
Vaiśampāyana said: “This is that very hand—once bold in tugging at a woman’s girdle, in pressing her full breasts, in touching the navel, thighs, and hips, and in loosening the knot of her lower garment.” The verse evokes the moral revulsion and grief of the women in the aftermath of war, recalling acts of sexual violation and humiliation as emblematic of adharma whose consequences now return upon the perpetrators.
वैशम्पायन उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse underscores the ethical horror of sexual violation and humiliation as grave adharma. In the Stree Parva’s mourning context, it frames such acts not as private wrongdoing but as moral corruption that contributes to collective ruin and invites inevitable suffering and retribution.
In the Stree Parva, women lament over the slain after the Kurukṣetra war. This line recalls the predatory hand that once violated women—yanking a girdle, touching intimate parts, loosening garments—now identified in death, intensifying grief and condemnation of the perpetrators’ past cruelty.