Prāyaścittaṁ vimarśanam. Real prāyaścitta, atonement, is knowledge. Why we are fighting? This knowledge required. Why you are fighting? Why there is miseries? This "why" question, this "why" question is in the Vedas. It is called Kena Upaniṣad, asking "Why?" Unless this question arises in a human mind, "Why?" "Why I am suffering?" that is not human life.
This question must arise. "Wherefrom I have come? What is my constitutional position? Where I shall go after death? Why I am put into this miserable condition of life? Why there is birth, death, old age, disease? I do not want all of them." So that . . . this is called vimarśanam, jñānam, thoughtful, how to solve these questions. Now Śukadeva Gosvāmī says nāśnataḥ.
- nāśnataḥ pathyam evānnaṁ
- vyādhayo 'bhibhavanti hi
- evaṁ niyamakṛd rājan
- śanaiḥ kṣemāya kalpate
- (SB 6.1.12)
If you want to stop some diseased condition of life, then you have to follow a regulative principle. Just like when you go to a doctor for curing some disease, he gives you some medicine and some direction also that, "You should not eat like this, you not sleep like this—you should do like this." Some do's and some do not's. That prescription is followed.
So here, Śukadeva Gosvāmī gives this example that na aśnataḥ pathyam eva annam. Suppose if you have got indigestion; you cannot digest food very nicely. So you have to eat such things which are easily digestible, or which may not cause acidity, flatulence, air.