Shloka 16
Dyumatsena’s Restoration and Sāvitrī’s Disclosure of Yama’s Boons (आरण्यकपर्व, अध्याय २८२)
क्षीयतां दुष्कृतं कर्म वनवासकृतं तव । भार्या मे भव सुश्रोणि यथा मन्दोदरी तथा,'सुश्रोणि! वनवासका कष्ट प्रदान करनेवाले तुम्हारे पूर्वकृत दुष्कर्मकी समाप्ति हो जानी चाहिये; इसके लिये तुम मन्दोदरीकी भाँति मेरी भार्या हो जाओ'
kṣīyatāṃ duṣkṛtaṃ karma vanavāsakṛtaṃ tava | bhāryā me bhava suśroṇi yathā mandodarī tathā ||
Маркандейя сказал: «Да иссякнет и завершится твой дурной поступок, плодом которого стала эта мучительная жизнь изгнания в лесу. Потому, о женщина с прекрасными бёдрами, стань моей женой, как Мандодари стала женой своего владыки».
मार्कण्डेय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse frames suffering (here, forest-exile) as the ripening of past wrongdoing and suggests that karmic residue can be ‘exhausted’ through lived consequence. Ethically, it also highlights how religious or moral language can be used to justify personal desire, inviting the reader to discern true dharma from self-serving persuasion.
Mārkaṇḍeya addresses a woman with flattering epithets and proposes that she become his wife, claiming this will help end the effects of her prior misdeeds that have led to hardship in the forest. He supports the proposal by invoking Mandodarī as a comparative model (“as Mandodarī [was]”).