Shloka 15
त्वां चेदवध्यं दायादमतीव प्रियदर्शनम् अहमसद्योपयोक्ष्यामि विधानं पश्य यादृशम्,“तुम यद्यपि अवध्य हो; क्योंकि मेरे ही वंशज हो। देखनेमें अत्यन्त प्रिय लगते हो तथापि आज तुम्हें अपना आहार बनाऊँगा। देखो, विधाताका कैसा विधान है?
tvāṁ ced avadhyaṁ dāyādam atīva priyadarśanam aham asadyopayokṣyāmi vidhānaṁ paśya yādṛśam
Vaiśampāyana said: “Even if you are not to be slain—being my own kinsman and an heir of my line—and though your appearance is exceedingly pleasing, still today I shall consume you as my food. Behold what a strange ordinance of fate this is.”
वैशम्पायन उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse highlights a moral tension between kinship-based restraint (one who is ‘avadhya’, not to be harmed) and the harsh compulsion of circumstance, framing the act as driven by ‘vidhāna’—the dispensation of fate—thus inviting reflection on responsibility, necessity, and ethical limits.
A speaker declares that, despite the other being a protected kinsman and pleasing in appearance, he will nevertheless consume him as food that very day, pointing to the unsettling power of fate’s arrangement.