उद्योगपर्व — अध्याय ८१: कृष्णस्य दूतप्रयाणम्
Udyoga Parva, Chapter 81: Krishna Sets Out as Envoy
'भामिनि! जिनपर तुम कुपित हुई हो, उन विपक्षियोंकी स्त्रियाँ भी अपने कुट॒म्बी, बन्धु-बान्धव, मित्रवृन्द तथा सेनाओंके मारे जानेपर इसी तरह रोयेंगी ।।
bhāmini! yān prati tvaṁ kupitāsi teṣāṁ vipakṣīyāḥ striyo 'pi sva-kuṭumbibāndhava-mitravṛnda-senānāṁ nihateṣu tathāiva rodiṣyanti. ahaṁ ca tat kariṣyāmi bhīmārjunayamaiḥ saha, yudhiṣṭhira-niyogena daivāc ca vidhinirmitāt.
O passionate lady! The women of those adversaries against whom you are enraged will likewise weep when their own households, kinsmen, relatives, circles of friends, and armies are slain. And I too shall bring that about, together with Bhīma, Arjuna, and Yama, by Yudhiṣṭhira’s command—and also because destiny, shaped by the ordained order, has so decreed.
वैशम्पायन उवाच
The verse underscores the moral weight and inevitability of war’s consequences: violence rebounds as grief upon families on both sides. It also frames action as occurring under both human agency (obedience to Yudhiṣṭhira’s command) and a larger determinism (daiva/vidhi), highlighting the Mahābhārata tension between duty-driven choice and fate.
In the Udyoga Parva’s lead-up to the Kurukṣetra war, the speaker conveys a grim assurance: the opponents’ women will mourn when their men and armies fall. The narrator adds that ‘I too will do this’ alongside Bhīma and Arjuna (and ‘Yama’ as a force/personification of death), acting under Yudhiṣṭhira’s directive and the compulsion of destiny.