Shloka 8
व्याधि-गुण-साम्योपदेशः | Discourse on Affliction, Guṇa-Equilibrium, and the Inner Battle
अथवा ते स्वभावो<यं येन पार्थावकृष्यसे । दृष्टवा सभागतां कृष्णामेकवस्त्रां रजस्वलाम् । मिषतां पाण्डवेयानां न तस्य स्मर्तुमिच्छसि
athavā te svabhāvo ’yaṃ yena pārthāvakṛṣyase | dṛṣṭvā sabhāgatāṃ kṛṣṇām ekavastrāṃ rajasvalām | miṣatāṃ pāṇḍaveyānāṃ na tasya smartum icchasi |
Or is it simply your very nature, O Pārtha, that makes you recoil? You saw Kṛṣṇā (Draupadī) dragged into the assembly—clad in a single garment and in her menstrual state—while the sons of Pāṇḍu looked on. And yet now you do not wish even to remember her in that condition.
वायुदेव उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse frames moral responsibility as inseparable from memory: to forget or refuse to recall an injustice—especially the public humiliation of a vulnerable person—signals a failure of dharma. Vāyudeva’s rebuke implies that a kṣatriya’s integrity is tested not only in battle but in acknowledging and responding to wrongdoing witnessed in the court.
Vāyudeva addresses Pārtha (Arjuna), challenging him for shrinking back and for not wanting to remember the earlier outrage in the assembly where Draupadī was dragged in, wearing a single garment and menstruating, while the Pāṇḍavas looked on. The speech uses that remembered humiliation as a moral goad to confront complacency and restore righteous resolve.