शकुनिर् उवाच
श्रोत्रियो ऽश्रोत्रियम् उत निकृत्यैव युधिष्ठिर ॥
विद्वान् अविदुषो ऽभ्येति नाहुस् तां निकृतिं जनाः ॥
एवं त्वं माम् इहाभ्येत्य निकृतिं यदि मन्यसे ॥
देवनाद् विनिवर्तस्व यदि ते विद्यते भयम् ॥
śakunir uvāca
śrotriyo 'śrotriyam uta nikṛtyaiva yudhiṣṭhira ||
vidvān aviduṣo 'bhyeti nāhus tāṃ nikṛtiṃ janāḥ ||
evaṃ tvaṃ mām ihābhyetya nikṛtiṃ yadi manyase ||
devanād vinivartasva yadi te vidyate bhayam ||
[Shakuni:] "The learned [man overcomes] the unlearned through deceit, O Yudhishthira; the skilled approaches the unskilled — but people do not call this deceit. So you too, having come here to me, if you think [this] to be deceit — withdraw from the game, if you have fear."
19d56b65c295 · publicado 16 jul 2026, 16:03:36 UTC
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Shakuni pushes the sophistry to its edge: every superiority of skill, he says, is "deceit," yet it is not called deceit — therefore his own cheating is not deceit either. It is telling how falsehood conflates things that cannot be conflated: he places honest superiority of knowledge and dishonest trickery in the same rank, to justify the second by the first. The verse teaches how to recognize this substitution: not every advantage equals deceit, and the skill of an honest man is not comparable to the maneuver of a sharper. And the barb — "withdraw, if you are afraid" — is aimed at honor: to wound pride so as to strip away judgment. One who, lacking an argument, appeals to shame — "or are you a coward?" — drags the victim along not by truth but by wounded vanity.