Shloka 9
मायासभायां दुर्योधनस्य अवमान-प्रसङ्गः
Duryodhana’s Humiliation in the Hall of Māyā
अन्तर्भूतं ततो भूतमुवाचेद॑ं पुनर्वच: । यस्योत्सड़े गृहीतस्य भुजावभ्यधिकावुभौ
antarbhūtaṃ tato bhūtam uvācedaṃ punarvacaḥ | yasyotsaṅge gṛhītasya bhujāv abhyadhikāv ubhau, nimajjiṣyati yaṃ dṛṣṭvā so 'sya mṛtyur bhaviṣyati |
Then the unseen being, now present within, spoke again: “When this child is taken onto someone’s lap, his two extra arms—each furnished with five fingers like two five-hooded serpents—will sink away and disappear. And the one at whose sight this happens will become the cause of his death.”
भीष्म उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse underscores the Mahābhārata theme that extraordinary power and ominous signs are morally charged: a prophecy links a physical anomaly to a destined ethical consequence—death—suggesting that fate operates through identifiable causes and conditions rather than randomness.
Bhīṣma reports that an unseen being delivers a prophecy about a child born with extra arms: when the child is placed on a particular person’s lap, the extra arms will vanish, and that very person—identified by this sign—will later become the instrument of the child’s death.