Shloka 9
कर्णपर्व — द्विचक्रिकी युद्धपरिस्थिति: धृष्टद्युम्न- द्रौणि-संघर्षः तथा अर्जुन-रक्षणम्
Chapter 42
कृतश्च॒ समय: पूर्व क्षन्तव्यं विप्रियं तव । ऋते शल्यसहस्त्रेण विजयेयमहं परान् | मित्रद्रोहस्तु पापीयानिति जीवसि साम्प्रतम्
kṛtaś ca samayaḥ pūrvaṃ kṣantavyaṃ vipriyaṃ tava | ṛte śalya-sahasreṇa vijayeyam ahaṃ parān | mitra-drohas tu pāpīyān iti jīvasi sāmpratam ||
Sañjaya said: “An agreement was made earlier: you must forgive what is displeasing to you. Except for Śalya—who is worth a thousand— I would have conquered the other foes. But now you live on with this thought: ‘Betrayal of a friend is a graver sin.’”
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse foregrounds an ethical hierarchy: harming or betraying a friend (mitra-droha) is presented as especially grave. Even amid war, where hostility is expected, violating bonds of friendship and prior agreements is treated as a deeper moral fault, and the speaker frames endurance/forgiveness as part of honoring a prior compact.
Sañjaya reports a tense exchange in which a prior understanding is invoked—one party is asked to tolerate unpleasant speech or conduct. Śalya is singled out as extraordinarily formidable (“equal to a thousand”), implying that without Śalya’s obstructive presence or opposition, victory over the remaining enemies would have been achievable; the remark culminates in the moral reflection that betraying a friend is worse, a thought that now weighs on the addressed person.