यश् चित्तम् अन्वेति परस्य राजन्; वीरः कविः स्वाम् अतिपत्य दृष्टिम् ॥
नावं समुद्र इव बालनेत्राम्; आरुह्य घोरे व्यसने निमज्जेत् ॥
दुर्योधनो ग्लहते पाण्डवेन; प्रियायसे त्वं जयतीति तच् च ॥
अतिनर्माज् जायते संप्रहारो; यतो विनाशः समुपैति पुंसाम् ॥
yaś cittam anveti parasya rājan; vīraḥ kaviḥ svām atipatya dṛṣṭim ||
nāvaṃ samudra iva bālanetrām; āruhya ghore vyasane nimajjet ||
duryodhano glahate pāṇḍavena; priyāyase tvaṃ jayatīti tac ca ||
atinarmāj jāyate saṃprahāro; yato vināśaḥ samupaiti puṃsām ||
«Whoever follows another's mind, O king — be he hero or sage — having set aside his own judgment, boards, as it were, a ship steered by children upon the ocean, and will drown in dreadful calamity. Duryodhana plays at dice with the Pandava, and you rejoice, saying, ‘He is winning’ — but from excessive [play] a clash is born, from which comes the ruin of men.»
fb1e369f2bfe · published Jul 16, 2026, 4:03:36 PM UTC
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Vidura warns against bondage to another's mind: even a sage perishes if he surrenders his judgment to another. The comparison is telling — ‘a ship steered by children upon the ocean’: to entrust oneself to an unwise leader is to go under. The verse teaches that neither valor nor wisdom will save one who has renounced his own vision to please another: Dhritarashtra, led by Duryodhana, is exactly such a drowned man. And ‘from excessive play a clash is born’ warns of the small thing that breeds the great: what begins as a game will end in war. One who rejoices at a win without seeing the abyss behind it is making merry on a sinking ship.