Shloka 246
Yudhiṣṭhira’s Remorse and Vyāsa’s Teaching on Impermanence (Śoka-nivāraṇa)
जातिष्वन्यास्वपि यथा न भवेयं कुलान्तकृत् आपलोग मुझ गुरुघातीको आमरण अनशनके लिये बैठा हुआ समझें, जिससे दूसरे जन्मोंमें मैं फिर अपने कुलका विनाश करनेवाला न होऊँ
jātiṣv anyāsv api yathā na bhaveyaṃ kulāntakṛt | āpāḥ loko māṃ gurughātikaṃ ā-maraṇam anaśanāya upaviṣṭaṃ manyeta, yena dvitīyeṣu janmasu punar ahaṃ na bhaveyaṃ svakulavināśakṛt ||
Yudhiṣṭhira nói: “Để cho ngay cả trong những kiếp khác, ta không lại trở thành kẻ diệt tộc—hãy để người đời xem ta, kẻ đã giết bậc trưởng thượng và thầy dạy, như kẻ đã ngồi xuống tuyệt thực cho đến chết; hầu trong những đời sau, ta không còn gieo cảnh tan nát cho chính dòng họ mình nữa.”
युधिछिर उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse frames moral responsibility after catastrophic violence: Yudhiṣṭhira seeks expiation for the grave fault of harming revered elders/teachers and fears the karmic tendency to repeat such lineage-destroying acts in future births. Atonement is presented as both ethical accountability and a means to break harmful karmic patterns.
In Śānti Parva, after the war, Yudhiṣṭhira is overwhelmed by remorse. Here he expresses a wish that people recognize him as undertaking a fast unto death as penance, so that he will not again become a ‘kulāntakṛt’—a destroyer of his own family line—in other births.