Shloka 32
Aśvatthāmā’s Buddhi-Doctrine and Nocturnal Incursion Resolve (अश्वत्थाम्नः बुद्धिविचारः सौप्तिकसंकल्पश्च)
अद्याहं सर्वपञ्चालै: कृत्वा भूमिं शरीरिणीम् । प्रहत्यैकेकशस्तेषु भविष्याम्यनृण: पितु:,“आज समस्त पांचालोंके शरीरोंसे रणभूमिको शरीरधारिणी बनाकर एक-एक पांचालपर भरपूर प्रहार करके मैं अपने पिताके ऋणसे मुक्त हो जाऊँगा
adyāhaṁ sarvapañcālaiḥ kṛtvā bhūmiṁ śarīriṇīm | prahatyaikekaśas teṣu bhaviṣyāmy anṛṇaḥ pituḥ ||
Sañjaya said: “Today, by strewing the earth with the bodies of all the Pāñcālas—making the battlefield itself seem embodied—I will strike them down one by one. Thus shall I be freed from the debt I owe my father.”
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse highlights how the idea of ‘debt’ (ṛṇa) and filial obligation can be invoked to justify extreme violence. Ethically, it exposes a distorted sense of duty—where personal vengeance and inherited enmity are framed as repayment, revealing the moral collapse that the Sauptika episode dramatizes.
In the Sauptika Parva’s night-raid context, the speaker declares an intention to kill the Pāñcālas one by one, imagining the battlefield covered with their bodies, and claims that this will discharge the debt owed to his father—i.e., avenging past wrongs done to his lineage.