Shloka 16

Saṃsāra-gahana-jñāna: Vidura’s Account of Embodiment, Bondage, and Dharmic Release (संसारगहन-ज्ञानम्)

Devanagari script

सर्वे पितृवनं प्राप्ता: स्वपन्ति विगतत्वच: । निमसैरस्थिभूयिष्ैगत्रि: स्नायुनिबन्धनै:

Transliteration

sarve pitṛvanaṁ prāptāḥ svapanti vigatatvacaḥ | nimasair asthibhūyiṣṭhair gātraiḥ snāyunibandhanaiḥ ||

Translation

毗度罗说：“他们都已抵达祖灵之林，仿佛沉睡般横卧——皮肤尽失，身躯多已化作白骨，仅以筋腱相系。”

Word by Word

सर्वेall

पितृवनम्the forest of the Fathers (ancestral forest)

प्राप्ताःhaving reached

स्वपन्तिsleep

विगतत्वचःwhose skin is gone; skinless

निम्नैःwith hollows/depressions

अस्थिभूयिष्ठैःmostly bones; bone-dominant

गात्रैःwith bodies/limbs

स्नायुनिबन्धनैःwith bindings of sinews (held together by tendons)

Speaker

विदुर उवाच

Characters & Entities

व

विदुर (Vidura)

प

पितृवन (Pitṛvana—abode/forest of the ancestors)

Character Dynamics

Dharma Sankata (Moral Dilemma)

War Context

Verse Rasa (Emotional Essence)

Philosophical Teaching

Political Layer

Geographic Context

Meter (Chandas)

Sandhi Notes

Educational Q&A

What is the core teaching?

The verse underscores the stark impermanence of embodied life and the moral gravity of war: those once powerful are now indistinguishable as corpses. It presses the listener toward sober reflection on dharma, restraint, and the human cost of violence.

What is happening in the narrative?

In the Stree Parva’s lamentation context after the Kurukṣetra war, Vidura describes the slain as lying in the realm of the dead—skinless, flesh wasted, bodies reduced to bones—evoking the battlefield’s horrific aftermath and intensifying the mood of grief and reckoning.