Shloka 40
इध्मा: परिधयश्रैव शक्तयो विमला गदा: । सदस्या द्रोणशिष्याश्व॒ कृपस्य च शरद्वत:,निर्मल शक्तियाँ और गदाएँ सब ओर बिखरी हुई समिधाएँ होंगी। द्रोण और कृपाचार्यके शिष्य ही सदस्यका कार्य करेंगे
idhmāḥ paridhayaś caiva śaktayo vimalā gadāḥ | sadasyā droṇaśiṣyāś ca kṛpasya ca śaradvatāḥ ||
Karna said: “In that sacrifice, the fuel-sticks (idhma) and the enclosing logs (paridhi) will lie scattered all around, along with spotless spears and maces. And the ritual officiants (sadasya) will be none other than the disciples of Droṇa and of Kṛpa Śāradvata.”
कर्ण उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse highlights a moral tension: sacred ritual vocabulary can be used to aestheticize or legitimize violence. By calling weapons ‘pure’ and assigning ‘officiants’ from revered lineages, Karna exposes (and participates in) the tendency to cloak war in the language of dharma and sacrifice, prompting reflection on ethical responsibility behind such framing.
In Udyoga Parva, as war becomes inevitable, Karna speaks in a prophetic, ritualized register. He imagines the battlefield like a sacrificial arena where fuel-sticks and boundary-logs lie scattered together with spears and maces, and where the assistants to the ‘rite’ are the disciples of Droṇa and Kṛpa—signaling that the Kuru conflict will be conducted by trained warriors from the foremost martial teachers.