ARJUNA VISHADA YOGA, VERSE 8

                                                                         ARJUNA VISHADA YOGA 

 VERSE NUMBER: 8

YOUR VENERABLE SELF, BHISHMA, KARNA, KRIPA THE VICTORIOUS IN FIGHT, ASVATHAMA, VIKARNA AND SAUMADATTI AS WELL:

 Comments:

Swamy Chidbhavanandar ties up Duryiodhana’s calling Drona as the venerable self, and Kripa, the brother-in-law of Drona describing him as a fierce fighter. This, according to the swamy, is in atonement for his disrespectful words and censure Duriyodhana had resorted to in the earlier verses. For, he was angry for Drona’s training of the Pandavas. And the Pithamaha, Bhishma too is relegated to the second place, but he is the commander-in-chief of the Kauravas’ army!

Moreover he does not have any superlatives for his own bosom friend, Karna! There is a scene in the epic Mahabharata in which Duriyodhana comes into the chamber where his wife is playing the game of dice with Karna, and on seeing her husband the wife naturally stands up, and mistaking her action for leaving the game in the middle, Karna takes hold of the apron of her sari stitched with pearls; as such, the pearls come unstitched and fall in a flow on the floor, and all Duriyodhana asks his wife is, “Shall I pick up the pearls or string them up, too?”

Karna recounts this story to his own mother Kunti, when she reveals the fact of the motherhood as well as Karna’s fatherhood, thus after revealing his parentage, she begs him not to fight against his own brothers, Pandavas. When such is the friendship between Duriyodhana and Karna, the great archer and warrior with a special astra, Kantiba, but, Duryodhana resorts to empty superlatives, so as to assuage any feeling of being wounded by his own disciple.