Shloka 28

राजधर्मः—प्रमादवर्जनं, दण्डनीतिः, दुर्बलरक्षणम्

Royal Dharma: Vigilance, Just Punishment, Protection of the Vulnerable

Devanagari script

यत्र पापा ज्ञायमानाक्षरन्ति सतां कलिववंन्दते तत्र राज्ञ: । यदा राजा शास्ति नरानशिष्टां- स्तदा राज्यं वर्धते भूमिपस्य

Transliteration

utathya uvāca |

yatra pāpā jñāyamānāś caranti satāṁ kali-varṇaṁ dṛśyate tatra rājñaḥ |

yadā rājā śāsti narān aśiṣṭāṁs tadā rājyaṁ vardhate bhūmipasya ||

Translation

ဥတဿျက ပြောသည်— «အပြစ်သားဟု ထင်ရှားစွာ သိမြင်ရသူတို့ပင် မကြောက်မရွံ့ ပွင့်လင်းစွာ လှုပ်ရှားသွားလာနေရာ၌ သီလရှိသူတို့က ထိုနေရာ၏ မင်းကို ကလိယုဂ်၏ အရိပ် (အကျင့်ပျက်ယွင်းမှု) ဝိုင်းရံထားပြီဟု နားလည်ကြသည်။ သို့သော် မင်းသည် မသင့်တော်သူ၊ ဆိုးယုတ်သူတို့ကို စည်းကမ်းတကျ အပြစ်ပေး၍ ထိန်းသိမ်းသော် မြေရှင်မင်း၏ နိုင်ငံသည် အရပ်ရပ်မှ တိုးတက်繁荣 လာသည်»။

Word by Word

• यत्र: where
• यत्र: Adhikarana
• Type: Indeclinable
• Root: यत्र

• पापाः: sinful (men)
• पापाः: Karta
• Type: Noun
• Root: पाप
• Form: Masculine, Nominative, Plural

• ज्ञायमानाः: being known/recognized (openly)
• Type: Verb
• Root: ज्ञा
• Form: शानच् (present passive participle), Masculine, Nominative, Plural, Passive

• आचरन्ति: behave, act, move about
• Type: Verb
• Root: आचर्
• Form: Present (Lat), Third, Plural, Parasmaipada

• सताम्: of the good/virtuous
• Type: Noun
• Root: सत्
• Form: Masculine, Genitive, Plural

• कलिः: Kali (the evil age/personified strife)
• कलिः: Karta
• Type: Noun
• Root: कलि
• Form: Masculine, Nominative, Singular

• विवन्दते: pays homage to / attends upon
• Type: Verb
• Root: वि + वन्द्
• Form: Present (Lat), Third, Singular, Atmanepada

• तत्र: there
• तत्र: Adhikarana
• Type: Indeclinable
• Root: तत्र

• राज्ञः: of the king
• Type: Noun
• Root: राजन्
• Form: Masculine, Genitive, Singular

• यदा: when
• यदा: Adhikarana
• Type: Indeclinable
• Root: यदा

• राजा: the king
• राजा: Karta
• Type: Noun
• Root: राजन्
• Form: Masculine, Nominative, Singular

• शास्ति: punishes, chastises, governs
• Type: Verb
• Root: शास्
• Form: Present (Lat), Third, Singular, Parasmaipada

• नरान्: men, people
• नरान्: Karma
• Type: Noun
• Root: नर
• Form: Masculine, Accusative, Plural

• अशिष्टान्: unruly, undisciplined, wicked
• Type: Adjective
• Root: अशिष्ट
• Form: Masculine, Accusative, Plural

• तदा: then
• तदा: Adhikarana
• Type: Indeclinable
• Root: तदा

• राज्यम्: kingdom, rule
• राज्यम्: Karta
• Type: Noun
• Root: राज्य
• Form: Neuter, Nominative, Singular

• वर्धते: grows, prospers
• Type: Verb
• Root: वृध्
• Form: Present (Lat), Third, Singular, Atmanepada

• भूमिपस्य: of the lord of the earth (king)
• Type: Noun
• Root: भूमिप
• Form: Masculine, Genitive, Singular

Speaker

उतथ्य उवाच

Characters & Entities

• Utathya
• Kali
• the king (rājā/bhūmipa)
• the righteous (sat)
• wrongdoers (pāpāḥ/aśiṣṭāḥ)

Educational Q&A

What is the core teaching?

A king’s legitimacy and the health of his realm are measured by the protection of dharma: if known wrongdoers act fearlessly, it signals moral collapse (Kali’s ascendancy) and failure of governance; firm, just discipline of the unruly enables the kingdom to flourish.

What is happening in the narrative?

In the Shanti Parva’s instruction on rajadharma, the sage Utathya advises about signs of good and bad rule: unchecked public wrongdoing indicates the king is overpowered by Kali, whereas active punishment of the wicked leads to the growth and stability of the state.