Shloka 5

Jarāsandha-nipātana, rāja-mokṣa, and rājasūya-sāhāyya-prārthanā

Jarāsandha’s fall, liberation of kings, and request for support

Devanagari script

त्रैलोक्ये क्षत्रधर्मो हि श्रेयान्‌ वै साधुचारिणाम्‌ | नान्यं धर्म प्रशंसन्ति ये च धर्मविदो जना:,सत्कर्म करनेवाले क्षत्रियोंके लिये तीनों लोकोंमें क्षत्रियधर्म ही श्रेष्ठ है। धर्मज्ञ पुरुष क्षत्रियके लिये अन्य धर्मकी प्रशंसा नहीं करते

Transliteration

trailokye kṣatradharmo hi śreyān vai sādhucāriṇām | nānyaṃ dharmaṃ praśaṃsanti ye ca dharmavido janāḥ ||

Translation

ဇရာသန္ဓက ကြေညာသည်— «လောကသုံးပါး၌ပင် သဒ္ဓမ္မဖြင့် ပြုမူသော က္ṣatriya များအတွက် က္ṣatra-dharma (စစ်သူရဲဓမ္မ) သာ အမြင့်မြတ်ဆုံးလမ်းဖြစ်၏။ ဓမ္မကို အမှန်တကယ် သိသူတို့သည် က္ṣatriya အတွက် အခြားဓမ္မကို ထိုထက်မြင့်ဟု မချီးမွမ်းကြ»။

Word by Word

त्रैलोक्येin the three worlds

क्षत्रधर्मःthe Kshatriya-duty

हिindeed/for

श्रेयान्better/superior

वैindeed/assuredly

साधुचारिणाम्of the good-conducted (persons)

नnot

अन्यम्another/other

धर्मम्duty/law

प्रशंसन्तिthey praise

येwho/those who

चand

धर्मविदःknowers of dharma

जनाःpeople/persons

Speaker

जरासंध उवाच

Characters & Entities

Jarāsandha

trailokya (the three worlds)

kṣatriya (warrior class)

Meter (Chandas)

Sandhi Notes

Educational Q&A

What is the core teaching?

The verse asserts a dharma-ethic of role-appropriateness: for a kṣatriya who seeks to act rightly, the highest good lies in faithfully performing kṣatriya-dharma, and true knowers of dharma do not recommend abandoning it for some other path.

What is happening in the narrative?

In the Sabha Parva context, Jarāsandha is articulating a normative claim about royal/warrior duty—using the authority of ‘dharma-knowers’ to justify that a kṣatriya’s proper course is to adhere to the warrior-ruler’s obligations rather than adopt a different dharma.