Shloka 2136
Śalya Appointed as Karṇa’s Sārathi; Discourse on Praise, Blame, and Beneficial Counsel (कर्णस्य शल्यसारथ्यं तथा स्तवनिन्दाविचारः)
हार्दिक्यो वारयामास स्मयतन्निव मुहुर्मुहु: । दूसरी ओर समरांगणमें दुर्जय वीर शिखण्डीको, जो भीष्मके लिये मृत्युस्वरूप था, कृतवर्माने बारंबार मुसकराते हुए-से रोका
hārdikyo vārayāmāsa smayatan niva muhur muhuḥ |
Sañjaya said: Kṛtavarmā, the son of Hṛdīka, repeatedly checked (the advance), seeming to smile again and again. On another part of the battlefield he kept holding back the unconquerable hero Śikhaṇḍī—who had become, for Bhīṣma, the very embodiment of death—thus shaping the moral tension of war where personal destiny and strategic restraint collide.
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse highlights how, in war, strategic restraint and personal destiny intersect: even a mighty warrior may be checked by another’s deliberate intervention, while certain figures (like Śikhaṇḍī for Bhīṣma) embody the inescapability of karmic consequence.
Sañjaya reports that Kṛtavarmā repeatedly restrains Śikhaṇḍī on the battlefield, as if smiling, preventing him from advancing—Śikhaṇḍī being famed as the one who becomes the decisive cause of Bhīṣma’s downfall.