Mahabharata — Shanti Parva, Shloka 19

शल्मलि–पवनसंवादः

The Dialogue of Śalmali and Pavana

Devanagari script

न निष्कृतिर्भवेत्‌ तस्य यो हन्याच्छरणागतम्‌ । इतिहासमिमं श्रुत्वा पुण्यं पापप्रणाशनम्‌ । न दुर्गतिमवाप्रोति स्वर्गलोक॑ च गच्छति

Transliteration

na niṣkṛtir bhavet tasya yo hanyāc charaṇāgatam | itihāsam imaṁ śrutvā puṇyaṁ pāpa-praṇāśanam | na durgatim avāpnoti svargalokaṁ ca gacchati ||

Translation

ဘီရှ္မက ပြောသည်– “ခိုလှုံလာသူကို သတ်သောသူအတွက် အပြစ်ဖြေရာ မရှိ။ သို့သော် အပြစ်ဖျက်သိမ်းသော ပုဏ္ဏားမြတ်သမိုင်းဤအကြောင်းကို နားထောင်သူသည် ဆိုးရွားသော အခြေအနေသို့ မကျရောက်ဘဲ၊ ကောင်းကင်လောကသို့ ရောက်၏။”

Word by Word

• {'niṣkṛtiḥ': 'expiation, atonement, means of release from sin', 'bhavet': 'would be, could be (optative sense)', 'tasya': 'for him, of that person', 'yaḥ': 'who', 'hanyāt': 'would kill, should kill (optative

• here condemning the act)', 'śaraṇāgatam': 'one who has come for refuge

• a suppliant seeking protection', 'itihāsam': 'traditional narrative

• sacred historical account', 'imam': 'this', 'śrutvā': 'having heard

• by hearing', 'puṇyam': 'meritorious, holy, virtue-producing', 'pāpa-praṇāśanam': 'destroyer of sin', 'durgatim': 'bad destiny, downfall, miserable state after death', 'avāpnoti': 'attains, reaches', 'svargalokam': 'the world of heaven', 'gacchati': 'goes'}

Speaker

भीष्म उवाच

Characters & Entities

• Bhīṣma
• svargaloka (heaven)

Educational Q&A

What is the core teaching?

Protecting one who seeks refuge is a binding dharma; killing a śaraṇāgata is portrayed as a grave transgression beyond ordinary expiation. Conversely, attentive hearing of a righteous, sin-destroying narrative is presented as a powerful means of moral purification leading to auspicious posthumous destiny.

What is happening in the narrative?

Bhīṣma, instructing on dharma in the Śānti Parva, states a strict ethical rule regarding the inviolability of a suppliant who has surrendered for protection, and then praises the spiritual benefit of hearing the preceding exemplary account (itihāsa), promising freedom from durgati and attainment of heaven.