Shloka 68

Dharma-vyādha’s Analysis of Moral Decline and the Mahābhūta–Guṇa Schema (धर्मव्याधोपदेशः)

Devanagari script

स्वागतेनाग्नयस्तृप्ता आसनेन शतक्रतुः । पितर: पादशौचेन अन्नाद्येन प्रजापति:,ब्राह्मणका स्वागत करनेसे अग्नि, उसे आसन देनेसे इन्द्र, उसके पैर धोनेसे पितर और उसको भोजनके योग्य अन्न प्रदान करनेसे ब्रह्माजी तृप्त होते हैं

Transliteration

svāgatena agnayaḥ tṛptāḥ āsanena śatakratuḥ | pitaraḥ pādaśaucena annādyena prajāpatiḥ |

Translation

ယုဓိဋ္ဌိရက ပြောသည်– «ဗြာဟ္မဏကို ကြိုဆိုလျှင် သန့်ရှင်းသော မီးများ (အဂ္နိ) ကျေနပ်ကြသည်။ ထိုင်ခုံ (အာသန) ပေးလျှင် အိန္ဒြ (ရှတကရတု) ကျေနပ်သည်။ ခြေကို ဆေးကြောပေးလျှင် ပိတೃများ (ဘိုးဘွားဝိညာဉ်များ) ကျေနပ်ကြသည်။ စားသင့်သော အစာကို ပေးလျှင် ပရဇာပတိ (ဗြဟ္မာ) ကျေနပ်သည်»။

Word by Word

स्वागतेनby welcome/reception

अग्नयःthe fires (Agni-gods)

तृप्ताःsatisfied

आसनेनby (offering) a seat

शतक्रतुःŚatakratu (Indra)

पितरःthe Pitṛs (manes/ancestors)

पादशौचेनby washing the feet

अन्नाद्येनby food and the like (edibles)

प्रजापतिःPrajāpati (Brahmā)

Speaker

युधिछिर उवाच

Characters & Entities

Yudhiṣṭhira

Agni (sacred fires)

Indra (Śatakratu)

Pitṛs (ancestors)

Prajāpati (Brahmā)

brāhmaṇa (implied recipient of hospitality)

Meter (Chandas)

Sandhi Notes

Educational Q&A

What is the core teaching?

Hospitality to a worthy guest—especially a brāhmaṇa—is itself a dharmic sacrifice: welcoming pleases the sacred fires, offering a seat pleases Indra, washing the feet pleases the ancestors, and feeding pleases Prajāpati/Brahmā. Small acts of reverence are presented as spiritually consequential.

What is happening in the narrative?

Yudhiṣṭhira is articulating norms of proper reception (satkāra) for a brāhmaṇa/guest, mapping each element of guest-honoring—welcome, seat, foot-washing, and food—to the satisfaction of major divine and ancestral recipients, thereby reinforcing atithi-dharma within the Vana Parva discourse.