Shloka 7
Chapter 59: Baladeva’s Censure, Keśava’s Restraint, and Yudhiṣṭhira’s Moral Accounting
येअस्मान् पुरोपनृत्यन्त मूढा गौरिति गौरिति
ye asmān puropanṛtyanta mūḍhā gaur iti gaur iti
Sañjaya said: “Those fools who used to dance before us, crying again and again, ‘A cow! a cow!’”
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse highlights how derisive speech and humiliating mockery—especially in moments of power—reflect delusion (mūḍhatā) and can become morally charged causes of later hostility and suffering within the dharmic narrative of the war.
Sañjaya reports a taunting scene: certain people had earlier performed and jeered in front of the speaker’s side, repeatedly shouting “cow, cow,” a refrain used as ridicule; the line recalls past insults amid the escalating violence of the Shalya Parva.