Shloka 25
कर्णेन युधिष्ठिरानीकविदारणम् / Karṇa’s Breach of Yudhiṣṭhira’s Battle-Line
अहोरात्र कलाश्लैव काष्ठाश्न् ऋतवस्तथा । अनुकर्ष ग्रहा दीप्ता वरूथं चापि तारका:
ahorātra-kalāś caiva kāṣṭhāś ca ṛtavas tathā | anukarṣa-grahā dīptā varūthaṃ cāpi tārakāḥ ||
Duryodhana dijo: “El día y la noche, las divisiones del tiempo—kalā, kāṣṭhā—y las estaciones mismas se volvieron el soporte inferior (anukarṣa) del carro. Los planetas ardientes fueron su varūtha, su cobertura protectora, y las estrellas también formaron su armadura.”
दुर्योधन उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse uses cosmic metaphor to show how ambition and martial confidence can inflate into the belief that even time and the heavens serve one’s cause. Ethically, it warns that rhetorical grandeur and perceived cosmic sanction do not equal dharma; pride can misread power as destiny.
Duryodhana is speaking in the midst of the Karṇa Parva war narrative, describing (in exalted poetic terms) a chariot or war-array as if constructed and protected by cosmic elements—day/night, time-units, seasons, planets, and stars—thereby magnifying the scale and inevitability he feels in the conflict.