अम्बा–राम–भीष्म संवादः
Amba–Rama–Bhishma Dialogue on Vow and Refuge
अपि यत्र त्वया राम कृतं शौचं पुरा पितु: । तत्राहमपि हत्वा त्वां शौचं कर्तास्मि भार्गव
api yatra tvayā rāma kṛtaṃ śaucaṃ purā pituḥ | tatrāham api hatvā tvāṃ śaucaṃ kartāsmi bhārgava ||
Rāma said: “In that very place where you once performed the purificatory rite for your father, O Rāma, there too I—after slaying you—shall perform the same rite, O Bhārgava.”
राम उवाच
The verse highlights how ritual duty (śauca) can be invoked within a framework of violent honor and retaliation: the speaker frames killing as leading to a consequential obligation—performing purification—showing the tension between dharma as ritual propriety and dharma as ethical restraint.
Rāma addresses Bhārgava (Paraśurāma) with a threat: he says that at the very place where Bhārgava earlier performed purification for his father, Rāma will kill him and then perform the purificatory rite there—turning Bhārgava’s past act into a grim foreshadowing of his own death.