Ramayana — Ayodhya Kanda, Sarga 108, Shloka 12
जाबाल्युपदेशः
Jabali’s Pragmatic Counsel to Rama
गत स्स नृपतिस्तत्र गन्तव्यं यत्र तेन वै।प्रवृततिरेषा मर्त्यानां त्वं तु मिथ्या विहन्यसे।।।।
gataḥ sa nṛpatis tatra gantavyaṃ yatra tena vai |
pravṛttir eṣā martyānāṃ tvaṃ tu mithyā vihanyase || 2.108.12 ||
ထိုမင်းသည် သွားရမည့်နေရာသို့ သွားပြီးလေပြီ။ ဤသည်မှာ မရဏသတ္တဝါတို့၏ လမ်းစဉ်ပင် ဖြစ်သည်။ သို့ရာတွင် သင်သည် အလကားပင် ကိုယ်ကို ကိုယ်ပင် ပင်ပန်းစေ၏။
That king (Dasaratha) has gone to the place where he ought to go. Such is the nature of mortals. You are fruitlessly undergoing difficulties.
FAQs
The counsel pushes toward expediency: since death is inevitable, one should not bind oneself to painful vows—contrasting with Rāma’s dharma that treats duty as meaningful despite mortality.
Jābāli argues that Daśaratha’s death is simply the natural fate of mortals and that Rāma’s continued exile is needless suffering.
Rāma’s endurance and principled commitment are implicitly contrasted with Jābāli’s pragmatic dismissal of vow-bound duty.