Shloka 14
शोक-शमन उपदेशः
Instruction on the Pacification of Grief
उत्तार्यमाणमापाकादुद्धृतं चापि भारत । अथवा परिभुज्यन्तमेवं देहा: शरीरिणाम्
uttāryamāṇam āpākād uddhṛtaṃ cāpi bhārata | athavā paribhujyantam evaṃ dehāḥ śarīriṇām ||
Vidura said: “O Bhārata, the body of an embodied being is like something being lifted out from a cooking-pot, or else like something being consumed and used up. Thus, in this way, the bodies of living beings are ever subject to being drawn out, exhausted, and destroyed.”
विदुर उवाच
Educational Q&A
Vidura underscores the perishability of the body: embodied life is inevitably ‘drawn out’ and ‘used up.’ The ethical thrust is to restrain grief and attachment by remembering that bodily existence is transient and subject to decay.
In the aftermath of the war, amid lamentation, Vidura addresses the king (Bhārata/Dhṛtarāṣṭra) with sobering reflections on mortality, using vivid imagery (a pot from which something is lifted out; something being consumed) to frame the fate of bodies.