Shloka 37
Adhyāya 160: Arjuna’s Envoy-Message—Critique of Borrowed Valor and Pre-dawn Mobilization
वासुदेवसहस्रं वा फाल्गुनानां शतानि वा । आसाद्य माममाोधेषुं द्रविष्यन्ति दिशो दश,“हजारों श्रीकृष्ण और सैकड़ों अर्जुन भी अमोघ बाणोंवाले मुझ वीरके पास आकर दसों दिशाओंमें भाग जायँगे
vāsudevasahasraṃ vā phālgunānāṃ śatāni vā | āsādya mām amogheṣuṃ draviṣyanti diśo daśa ||
Ulūka boasts that even if a thousand Vāsudevas or hundreds of Arjunas were to confront him, they would still flee in all ten directions when they came up against him, the warrior whose arrows never fail.
उलूक उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse illustrates how arrogance in war can eclipse ethical discernment: Ulūka measures worth by terror and imagined invincibility, contrasting with the epic’s broader insistence that true strength is bound to dharma and self-control.
Ulūka, speaking as a hostile envoy/taunter in the Udyoga Parva context, issues a swaggering threat: he claims that even Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna multiplied many times would flee before him, aiming to intimidate the Pāṇḍavas and provoke conflict.