Shloka 86
Gṛdhra–Jambuka Saṃvāda (Dialogue of the Vulture and the Jackal) — On Grief, Kāla, and Resolve
पतिहीना तु का नारी सती जीवितुमुत्सहेत् । “नाथ! अब तुम्हारे बिना यहाँ इस जीवनसे भी क्या प्रयोजन है? ऐसी कौन सी पतिव्रता स्त्री होगी, जो पतिके बिना जीवित रह सकेगी?
patihīnā tu kā nārī satī jīvitum utsahet |
ビーシュマは言った。「夫を失った徳ある女が、なお生き続けようと自らを奮い立たせ得るだろうか。『パティヴラター（夫に貞節を尽くす妻）』の理想において、夫は女の第一の支えであり生の目的とされる。ゆえに寡婦となることは、その価値体系の中で倫理と情の危機として描かれる。」
भीष्म उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse voices a classical dharma-ideal in which a wife’s fidelity and life-orientation are centered on her husband; it portrays the loss of the husband as so decisive that a ‘satī’ is imagined as scarcely able to continue living, highlighting the intensity of conjugal devotion as a moral-emotional norm in the text’s discourse.
In Bhīṣma’s instruction within the Śānti Parva, he makes a pointed rhetorical statement about the condition of a husbandless woman, using the figure of the ‘satī’ to emphasize how grievous and destabilizing widowhood is considered under the prevailing social-ethical framework being discussed.