अणीमाण्डव्य उवाच
अल्पे ऽपराधे विपुलो मम दण्डस् त्वया कृतः ॥
शूद्रयोनाव् अतो धर्म मानुषः संभविष्यसि ॥
मर्यादां स्थापयाम्य् अद्य लोके धर्मफलोदयाम् ॥
आ चतुर्दशमाद् वर्षान् न भविष्यति पातकम् ॥
परेण कुर्वताम् एवं दोष एव भविष्यति ॥
aṇīmāṇḍavya uvāca
alpe 'parādhe vipulo mama daṇḍas tvayā kṛtaḥ ||
śūdrayonāv ato dharma mānuṣaḥ saṃbhaviṣyasi ||
maryādāṃ sthāpayāmy adya loke dharmaphalodayām ||
ā caturdaśamād varṣān na bhaviṣyati pātakam ||
pareṇa kurvatām evaṃ doṣa eva bhaviṣyati ||
Animandavya said: 'For a small offense you have inflicted upon me a vast punishment; for that, O Dharma, you shall be born a human in the womb of a shudra. And I now establish in the world a boundary for the ripening of the fruits of deeds: up to the fourteenth year, sin shall not be imputed; but for those who act thus after that age, there shall indeed be guilt.'
8633fe11837d · published Jul 12, 2026, 4:30:26 PM UTC
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This is the heart of the tale: Dharma's curse and the birth of the law concerning the age of accountability. What stirs the righteous one's indignation is telling — not the retribution itself, but its disproportion: 'for a small offense, a vast punishment,' since the act was committed in the unreasoning years of childhood. Here the principle of measure (maryādā) in dharma is affirmed: justice lies not only in rendering recompense, but in rendering it proportionately, taking into account the doer's capacity for discernment. It is significant that by the power of his tapas Mandavya is able not merely to curse a god but to establish a new universal law: until the age of fourteen, a child's deed is not imputed as sin, for full discernment between good and evil has not yet arisen. This is a great mercy born of unjustly borne suffering: out of his own anguish the righteous one fashions a blessing for all children to come. Here is the lofty ideal of holiness: to turn one's own pain into a shield for others. As for the curse itself, it too is part of the divine plan: the god Dharma will descend as Vidura, so that in the form of a wise and dispassionate counselor he may make dharma manifest among the Kurus at the hour of their greatest drama. Thus out of seeming injustice are born both a merciful law and the noblest righteous man of the epic.