Translation

O master, the distinguished ones in my army are yourself, Bhīshma, Karna, Kṛpāchārya, the ever winner in battles, Asvatthāmā, Vikarna, the son of Somadatta (Bhūriśravas), and Jayadratha.                                                                 

And there are other heroes, high in numbers, who have risked their lives for my sake. All are expert users of a variety of weapons and skilled in warfare.

Annotation

We have seen Duryodhana has made note of about twenty-two prominent army leaders on the Pāṇḍava side, whereas, in his army, he sees only eight leaders, including himself, worth mentioning. Has he not a good reason to be anxious?

He also mentions he has a high number of heroes who have come prepared to sacrifice their lives for his sake. In fact, the expression in the verse says they have already sacrificed their lives! It suggests that Duryodhana hears an inner voice saying he has already jeopardized the lives of many, many heroes to gratify his personal desire. He does not sense an easy victory either, if he has to lose so many heroes.

Vyāsa, in the same words, offers yet another perspective on the heroes who are prepared to die for the sake of Duryodhana. He uses a word madarthe (मदर्थे), which does mean ‘for my sake’. The ancient Indian poets employed a rhetorical feature, the foremost one that determined the quality of the composition—dhvaniḥ. (Dhvaniḥ is that “in which the implied or suggested sense of a passage is more striking than the expressed sense; or where the expressed sense is made subordinate to the suggested sense.”) In the word madarthe, the sound artha also means wealth; madartha suggests my wealth; madarthe then implies for the sake of my wealth. Duryodhana knows very well that the leaders who came to fight for him are those who want to enjoy the wealth he controls; the Kuru elders, such as Bhīshma, Drona, Kṛpa, et al., are no exceptions. It adds to his worry because he realizes their hearts are not with him. For a moment, he thinks that everybody on his side, including himself, is driven by greed for wealth and power, neglecting dharma altogether. 

Such thoughts and worries remind us of the dharma-śarīra within Duryodhana, causing internal conflicts on the momentous occasion of his life. 

Thus, his worry appears to be a serious one. Let us continue to listen to him.

Translation

That army of ours, under the care of Bhīshma, looks insufficient to fight and defeat the Pāṇḍavas, whereas this army of theirs, well protected by Bhīma, is more than enough to vanquish ours.

Annotation

As the captain of the Kauravas, Duryodhana makes his own assessment of the two armies. He has eleven army divisions (akshauhiṇis). Each division has 21870 chariot-warriors, 21870 elephant-mounted soldiers, 65610 horse-mounted soldiers and 109,350 foot-soldiers. The Pāṇḍavas have only seven army divisions against his eleven.

He perhaps has no faith in numbers at this moment when his dharma-śarīra might have suggested the size of the army is not what matters. He has seen the unarmed Kṛshṇa on the opposite side as Arjuna’s charioteer. Has he realized the unarmed Kṛshṇa is more powerful than anybody else on the battleground is? When he informed his uncle Śakuni that he had opted for Kṛshṇa’s powerful army rather than the unarmed Kṛshṇa, even the lowly Śakuni regretted that he did not have Kṛshṇa on his side. The day before the battle, Bhīshma assured Duryodhana of his unstinting support to employ his invincible powers and crush his enemies; but he underlined that victory accompanied Kṛshṇa as his shadow! Has he recollected all this in front of Kṛshṇa?

Duryodhana has counted twenty-two outstanding leaders in the Pāṇḍava army. At the end of verse 6, after naming them, he has asserted: sarva eva mahārathāḥ (सर्व एव महारथाः)—all are great-chariot-warriors, for sure. The literal translation of the word mahāratha is great-chariot-warrior, but its definition is significant in this situation. A mahāratha is a warrior who can all alone fight ten thousand archers at a time; and he has mastery in the usage of all weapons of offence and defence. Twenty-two of them in the Pāṇḍava army can take on two hundred and twenty thousand archers at a time. If they continue to fight in the weeks-long battle, they could wipe out a major part of Duryodhana’s much larger army. When he named seven leaders from his own army, he did not qualify them as mahārathas, even though well accomplished were most of them in warfare.

It is not the thought of his defeat alone that puts him in distress; what shudders him is the sudden awareness that he will be the sole reason for the annihilation of millions of innocent lives on both sides. About four million strong are the two armies put together. A huge number of soldiers and their families find themselves in peril because of his obsessive desire for power and wealth, because of his unstoppable vicious onslaught on justice and dharma. When the thought occurs, however short-lived, it will make even an intrepid hero nervous. Dharma-śarīra remains a witness, but karma śarīra becomes feeble for a moment, making him feel threatened by the perfectly harmless dharma-śarīra. However, the ever-insistent demands of kāma (desire) are of immeasurable force. In no time, kāma liberates the mind from these conflicts within the human psyche, driving the individual to go after the desires with a renewed vigor. [To read about dharma-śarīra and karma śarīra, click/tap on the link: Dharma-śarīra and Karma śarīra.]

Standing together with his army, Duryodhana blurts out the phrase “that army of ours” (read the verse again) as though he was standing far away from his army. His own conscience frightens him to stay away from war; and he says “this army of theirs (of the Pāṇḍavas)”, receiving a clear signal from his heart that only the Pāṇḍavas are relevant at this instant, for justice is on their side. (In the transactional world, justice sounds like dharma, but they are different. All injustice and crimes take place when the observance of dharma is absent.) When Duryodhana is about to plunge into action intending to perpetuate adharma, dharma from within sends warning signals; so his words get mixed.

[Such warning signals do come from within when one plans to do any unfair, unrighteous actions. The problem is the signals become very feeble in the bustle being created by the overpowering kāma (desire); kāma has the tendency to propel karma śarīra in all directions except in that of dharma (righteousness) or Brahman.]

How is he going to face the challenge?

Translation

All of you, standing in your respective positions at all the entrances to the army formation, should protect none other than Bhīshma.

Annotation

Duryodhana makes a very interesting statement and closes his monologue. He demands that all his army leaders protect Bhīshma alone! Bhīshma is the Supreme Commander of Duryodhana’s army. He is still a fierce warrior, although a centenarian, who can more than match the other mahārathās (great-chariot-warriors). Favored by a boon, he will die only when he wishes to die (the boon is known in Sanskrit as svachhanda mṛtyu). Yet Duryodhana has mounting concern about the life of Bhīshma. What could be the reason?

In the last attempt to avoid a war, Kṛshṇa informed Duryodhana at Hastinapura that the Pāṇḍavas would settle for five villages for themselves; but Duryodhana summarily rejected any peace terms. And he remarked to Kṛshṇa that the Pāṇḍavas were neither the sons of Pāṇḍu nor, therefore, the members of the Kuru family (alluding to the divine paternity of the Pāṇḍavas). Kṛshṇa then reminded him he and his brothers, by the same logic, were not of the Kuru family either; the present Kauravas are not the descendants of the three last Kuru princes, Bhīshma, Chitrāngada and Vichitravīrya; none of them had children. (Duryodhana’s father, Dhṛtarāshṭra, is the son of Vyāsa.) Bhīshma is the only living legitimate successor to the throne.

Even after abdicating the throne, Bhīshma continues to live in the palace, still wielding the power to ratify all major decisions. In the absence of Bhīshma’s goodwill, Duryodhana becomes unworthy of the physical power to fight the battle and of the right to the throne. Duryodhana’s concern is understandable. Are there any threats to Bhīshma’s life?

1) Bhīshma had sworn he would not fight any person who was by birth a woman. The vengeful Amba has now reincarnated as Śikhandin to avenge her abduction from her svayamvara hall. Amba had secured a boon from Lord Śiva that she, in her next birth, would be the reason for Bhīshma’s death. Śikhandin, by birth a woman and transformed now as a man, is waiting in the Pāṇḍava army to fight Bhīshma.

2) On the eve of the Kurukshetra battle, Duryodhana sent boastful messages to the Pāṇḍavas through Ulūka, the son of Śakuni ̶ separate messages to each Pāṇḍava, Kṛshṇa, and the other major kings of their allies. The intention was two-fold: (a) To insult the Pāṇḍavas and Kṛshṇa, saying it was Duryodhana who punished the sons of Pāṇḍu despite all their merits, and (b) to threaten them describing the strength of Bhīshma and Drona who would fight the Pāṇḍavas on his behalf and defeat them. Each Pāṇḍava sent fitting reply to Duryodhana. Arjuna’s reply would have shaken the Kaurava King: Hey Duryodhana, one who boasts, relying on the strength of the others (Bhīshma, Drona, et al.) is an infamous Kshatriya. At sunrise (tomorrow) I will first slay, before your very eyes, Bhīshma, the eldest of the Kurus! You will know then what it is to indulge in mere bragging.

Drona and Kṛpa on the Kaurava side are seasoned warriors of extraordinary skills, and Karna is ever confident to challenge Arjuna in archery. All the same, Duryodhana is hopeful of winning the war and the Kingdom only as long as Bhīshma is alive, so he wants everybody to protect the old Kuru alone.

Even after sensing defeat and total destruction, his dharma-śarīra remains overshadowed by the supremacy of kāma (desire); and he is full blind to the fact that the option for an amicable settlement is not closed yet. Any war situation is not different from what we witness here.

What will happen now?

<<PREVIOUS POST                                                                                                                      NEXT POST>>

------------------

(To read the next post [Gita Post #7] click/tap on this link: https://www.ekatma.org/node/185)