Shloka 14
Karṇa’s advance against the Pāṇḍava host; Arjuna’s clash with the Saṃśaptakas (कर्णस्य पाण्डवसेनाप्रवेशः—अर्जुनस्य संशप्तकसंप्रहारः)
समागतानि चैतानि यो हन्याद् भगवंस्तदा । एकेषुणा देववर: स नो मृत्युर्भविष्यति
samāgatāni caitāni yo hanyād bhagavaṁs tadā | ekeṣuṇā devavaraḥ sa no mṛtyur bhaviṣyati, nibodha manasā cātra na te kāryā vicāraṇā ||
Duryodhana sprach: „O Ehrwürdiger, wenn (jene drei Städte) zusammenkommen und eins werden, dann wird derjenige, der sie in jenem Augenblick mit nur einem einzigen Pfeil vernichten kann—er, der Beste unter den Göttern—zur Ursache unseres Todes werden. Erfasse dies mit festem Geist; hege darüber keinen Zweifel und keine zweiten Gedanken.“
दुर्योधन उवाच
Educational Q&A
Even seemingly invincible protections based on conditions and clever safeguards remain vulnerable to a higher power and to the ripening of fate; clinging to certainty and forbidding reflection (“no deliberation”) can signal pride and moral blindness in counsel.
Duryodhana cites a well-known mythic condition: when the three strongholds unite, only a supreme divine archer who can destroy them with a single arrow will be their death. He urges his listener to accept this point firmly and not to doubt it, using the exemplum to frame the present war’s stakes and inevitabilities.