Shloka 246
Yudhiṣṭhira’s Remorse and Vyāsa’s Teaching on Impermanence (Śoka-nivāraṇa)
जातिष्वन्यास्वपि यथा न भवेयं कुलान्तकृत् आपलोग मुझ गुरुघातीको आमरण अनशनके लिये बैठा हुआ समझें, जिससे दूसरे जन्मोंमें मैं फिर अपने कुलका विनाश करनेवाला न होऊँ
jātiṣv anyāsv api yathā na bhaveyaṃ kulāntakṛt | āpāḥ loko māṃ gurughātikaṃ ā-maraṇam anaśanāya upaviṣṭaṃ manyeta, yena dvitīyeṣu janmasu punar ahaṃ na bhaveyaṃ svakulavināśakṛt ||
ユディシュティラは言った。「他の生においてさえ、再び一族を滅ぼす者とならぬために――長老と師を殺したこの私を、人々が“死に至るまでの断食に座した者”と見なすがよい。そうして来世において、私は二度と自らの家族に破滅をもたらさぬように。」
युधिछिर उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse frames moral responsibility after catastrophic violence: Yudhiṣṭhira seeks expiation for the grave fault of harming revered elders/teachers and fears the karmic tendency to repeat such lineage-destroying acts in future births. Atonement is presented as both ethical accountability and a means to break harmful karmic patterns.
In Śānti Parva, after the war, Yudhiṣṭhira is overwhelmed by remorse. Here he expresses a wish that people recognize him as undertaking a fast unto death as penance, so that he will not again become a ‘kulāntakṛt’—a destroyer of his own family line—in other births.