Shloka 45
Udyoga Parva 142: Vidura’s warning to Kuntī and Kuntī’s resolve to meet Karṇa
Gaṅgātīra encounter begins
अहं चान्ये च राजानो यच्च तत् क्षत्रमण्डलम् | गाण्डीवान्निं प्रवेक्ष्याम इति मे नास्ति संशय:,“'मैं' अन्यान्य नरेश तथा वह सारा क्षत्रियसममाज सब-के-सब गाण्डीवकी अम्निमें प्रवेश कर जायँगे, इसमें संशय नहीं है
ahaṃ cānye ca rājāno yac ca tat kṣatramāṇḍalam | gāṇḍīvāgnim pravekṣyāma iti me nāsti saṃśayaḥ ||
Sañjaya sprach: „Ich und die anderen Könige — ja, dieser ganze Kreis kshatriyischer Macht — werden in das Feuer des Gāṇḍīva eingehen. Daran hege ich keinen Zweifel.“
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse conveys a grim certainty about the consequences of escalating conflict: when kṣatriya pride and political rivalry harden into war, even the powerful are swept into destruction. The ‘fire of the Gāṇḍīva’ frames martial prowess as an all-consuming force, warning that violence, once unleashed, spares neither individuals nor the wider warrior order.
Sañjaya, as narrator, voices an unshaken conviction that he and many kings—indeed the whole kṣatriya establishment—will be consumed by the impending war, figuratively described as entering the ‘fire’ generated by Arjuna’s bow, the Gāṇḍīva. The line heightens the atmosphere of inevitability and looming catastrophe in the pre-war deliberations of the Udyoga Parva.