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Shloka 30

Kṣātra-Dharma, Daṇḍanīti, and Social Order

Indra–Māndhātṛ Dialogue

सर्वधर्मपरं क्षात्र॑ं लोकश्रेष्ठं सनातनम्‌ । शश्वदक्षरपर्यन्तमक्षरं सर्वतोमुखम्‌,इस प्रकार संसारमें क्षात्रधर्म ही सब धर्मोसे श्रेष्ठ सनातन, नित्य, अविनाशी, मोक्षतक पहुँचानेवाला सर्वतोमुखी है

sarvadharmaparaṁ kṣātraṁ lokaśreṣṭhaṁ sanātanam | śaśvad akṣara-paryantam akṣaraṁ sarvato-mukham |

အိန္ဒြက မိန့်တော်မူသည်– «က்ன္သာတရဓမ္မ (kṣātra-dharma) ဟူသော စစ်သူရဲဘုရင်၏ တာဝန်ဓမ္မသည် ဓမ္မအားလုံးထက် မြင့်မြတ်၏။ လောက၌ အမြင့်ဆုံးဖြစ်၍ အနန္တ (ထာဝရ) ဖြစ်သည်။ မပျက်မယွင်းသော အက္ခရာ (မောက္ခ/လွတ်မြောက်ခြင်း) သို့ မလွဲမသွေ ခေါ်ဆောင်နိုင်၏။ ကိုယ်တိုင်လည်း တည်ကြည်ခိုင်မာ၍ ‘အရပ်ရပ်သို့ မျက်နှာမူ’ သကဲ့သို့ အားလုံးကို ထောက်ပံ့ကာကွယ်နိုင်သည်»။

सर्वधर्मपरम्supreme among all dharmas
सर्वधर्मपरम्:
Karma
TypeAdjective
Rootसर्वधर्मपर
FormNeuter, Accusative, Singular
क्षात्रम्the kṣātra (kṣatriya) duty/way
क्षात्रम्:
Karma
TypeNoun
Rootक्षात्र
FormNeuter, Accusative, Singular
लोकश्रेष्ठम्best in the world
लोकश्रेष्ठम्:
Karma
TypeAdjective
Rootलोकश्रेष्ठ
FormNeuter, Accusative, Singular
सनातनम्eternal
सनातनम्:
Karma
TypeAdjective
Rootसनातन
FormNeuter, Accusative, Singular
शश्वत्always, perpetually
शश्वत्:
TypeIndeclinable
Rootशश्वत्
अक्षरपर्यन्तम्having the Imperishable as its end/limit (leading up to mokṣa)
अक्षरपर्यन्तम्:
Karma
TypeAdjective
Rootअक्षरपर्यन्त
FormNeuter, Accusative, Singular
अक्षरम्imperishable
अक्षरम्:
Karma
TypeAdjective
Rootअक्षर
FormNeuter, Accusative, Singular
सर्वतोमुखम्having faces in all directions; all-encompassing
सर्वतोमुखम्:
Karma
TypeAdjective
Rootसर्वतोमुख
FormNeuter, Accusative, Singular

इन्द्र उवाच

I
Indra

Educational Q&A

The verse elevates kṣātra-dharma—righteous rule, protection, and disciplined use of force—as a comprehensive social duty that sustains the world and, when practiced in alignment with dharma, can become a means leading toward the Imperishable (mokṣa).

In the Śānti Parva’s instruction on peace and governance, Indra speaks as an authoritative voice, praising the ideal of kṣatriya duty: protecting society, upholding order, and acting with a universal responsibility (‘sarvato-mukha’), rather than for narrow self-interest.