Shloka 40
उद्योगपर्व — अध्याय १४० (कृष्णेन कर्णं प्रति पाण्डवबल-वैशिष्ट्यप्रदर्शनम्) / Udyoga Parva, Chapter 140
Krishna’s appraisal of Pandava advantage and war portents
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 dijo: «En ese sacrificio, los leños de combustible (idhma) y los maderos de cerco (paridhi) estarán esparcidos por doquier, junto con lanzas y mazas relucientes. Y los oficiantes del rito (sadasya) no serán otros que los discípulos de Droṇa y los de 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.