Shloka 2

धृतराष्ट्रस्य क्षमायाचनं तथा युधिष्ठिरे न्यासदानम् / Dhṛtarāṣṭra’s Request for Forgiveness and the Entrustment to Yudhiṣṭhira

Devanagari script

कार्तिक्यां कारयित्वेष्टिं ब्राह्मुणैवेंदपारगै:

Transliteration

vaiśampāyana uvāca | kārtikyāṃ kārayitveṣṭiṃ brāhmaṇair vedapāragaiḥ |

Translation

ဝိုင်ရှမ္ပာယန မိန့်တော်မူသည်– «ကာတ္တိက လပြည့်နေ့၌ ဝေဒကျမ်းကို ကျွမ်းကျင်သိမြင်သော ဗြာဟ္မဏတို့အား ခရီးထွက်ရာကာလနှင့် သင့်တော်သည့် အိဋ္ဌိ (iṣṭi) ပူဇော်ပွဲကို ဆောင်ရွက်စေပြီး၊ မင်းဓృతရာෂ္ဌရ သည် သစ်ခွံဝတ်နှင့် သမင်အရေကို ဝတ်ဆင်하였다။ အဂ္နိဟောတရ (Agnihotra) ကို သာသနာတော်တာဝန်အဖြစ် ရှေ့တန်းတင်ကာ၊ သားတို့၏ မယားများ ဝိုင်းရံလျက် နန်းတော်မှ ထွက်ခွာသွား၏»။

Word by Word

• कार्तिक्याम्: on (the day of) Kārtikī (full-moon of Kārtika)
• कार्तिक्याम्: Adhikarana
• Type: Noun
• Root: कार्तिकी
• Form: Feminine, Locative, Singular

• कारयित्वा: having caused (to be done)
• Type: Verb
• Root: कृ (कारयति, causative)
• Form: Absolutive (Gerund)

• इष्टिम्: a (Vedic) sacrifice/oblation-rite
• इष्टिम्: Karma
• Type: Noun
• Root: इष्टि
• Form: Feminine, Accusative, Singular

• ब्राह्मणैः: by Brahmins
• ब्राह्मणैः: Karana
• Type: Noun
• Root: ब्राह्मण
• Form: Masculine, Instrumental, Plural

• एव: indeed/only
• Type: Indeclinable
• Root: एव

• इन्दपारगैः: by those who had gone to the far shore of the Veda (Veda-experts)
• इन्दपारगैः: Karana
• Type: Adjective
• Root: वेदपारग
• Form: Masculine, Instrumental, Plural

Speaker

वैशम्पायन उवाच

Characters & Entities

• Vaiśampāyana
• Kārttika (month / full-moon)
• Brāhmaṇas
• Veda
• iṣṭi (sacrificial rite)
• valkala (bark-garment)
• mṛgacarma (deer-skin)
• agnihotra (sacred fire rite)
• Dhṛtarāṣṭra
• royal palace (rājabhavana)
• sons’ wives (pūtra-vadhūḥ)

Educational Q&A

What is the core teaching?

The verse highlights dharma through a conscious shift from royal life to disciplined renunciation: before departing, Dhṛtarāṣṭra ensures Vedic rites are duly performed and keeps agnihotra central, showing that withdrawal from power should be guided by ritual responsibility, self-restraint, and ethical reorientation rather than mere escape.

What is happening in the narrative?

On the Kārttika full-moon, Dhṛtarāṣṭra arranges an iṣṭi sacrifice through Veda-knowing Brāhmaṇas, adopts ascetic attire (bark and deer-skin), prioritizes the agnihotra, and then leaves the palace accompanied by his sons’ wives—marking the beginning of his forest-dwelling phase.