Shloka 29
कर्णेन युधिष्ठिरानीकविदारणम् / Karṇa’s Breach of Yudhiṣṭhira’s Battle-Line
द्यां युगं युगचर्माणि संवर्तकबलाहकान् । कालपृष्ठोडथ नहुष: कर्कोटकधनंजयौ
dyāṃ yugaṃ yugacarmāṇi saṃvartakabalāhakān | kālapṛṣṭho ’tha nahuṣaḥ karkoṭakadhanaṃjayau ||
Dijo Duryodhana: «El cielo mismo se volvió el yugo; las pieles de las eras cósmicas se hicieron correas del yugo; y las grandes nubes de la disolución sirvieron de ataduras. Kālapṛṣṭha, Nahuṣa, Karkoṭaka y Dhanaṃjaya—junto con otros nāgas—fueron hechos cuerdas para sujetar las crines de los caballos, mientras que las direcciones y las direcciones intermedias tomaron la forma de las riendas.»
दुर्योधन उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse illustrates how a warrior-king’s rhetoric can inflate human conflict into cosmic inevitability. Ethically, it warns that grandiose self-justification and fascination with power can eclipse discernment (dharma-vicāra) and the duty to restrain violence.
Duryodhana describes an imagined, cosmic-scale chariot harnessing: sky as yoke, pralaya-clouds as gear, nāgas as fastening ropes, and the directions as reins. It is a poetic intensification of the war’s magnitude and his own martial resolve.