Shloka 276
पलाण्डुगंडूषयुतान् खादन्ती चैडकान् बहून् । “मैं वस्त्राभूषणोंसे विभूषित हो गोमांस खाकर और गुड़की बनी हुई मदिरा पीकर तृप्त हो अंजलि भर प्याजके साथ बहुत-सी भेड़ोंको खाती हुई गोरे रंगकी लंबी युवती स्त्रियोंके साथ मिलकर इस शाकल नगरमें पुन: कब इस तरहकी बाहीकसम्बन्धी गाथाओंका गान करूँगी
palāṇḍu-gaṇḍūṣa-yutān khādantī ca eḍakān bahūn |
Karna speaks in a tone of biting satire, evoking the coarse pleasures and food-habits associated (in the epic’s polemical rhetoric) with the Bāhlīka/Śākala region. He imagines a scene of indulgence—adorned with garments and ornaments, eating beef, drinking jaggery-fermented liquor, and consuming handfuls of onions while devouring many sheep—amid fair, tall young women, and asks when he will again sing such “Bāhlīka-related” songs in the city of Śākala. The passage functions as a moralized caricature: it contrasts refined kṣatriya ideals with a deliberately “unrestrained” lifestyle, using food and drink as ethical markers in the war-time discourse of honor and cultural identity.
कर्ण उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse uses satirical exaggeration to mark certain indulgent habits as ethically and culturally “low,” reinforcing a war-time rhetoric of honor and self-restraint. It shows how the epic sometimes encodes moral judgment through depictions of diet, drink, and pleasure.
Karna is speaking and mockingly evokes a scene in Śākala associated with Bāhlīka customs—adornment, meat and liquor, onions, and feasting—framing it as a kind of ballad or refrain he might sing again. The tone is derisive, aimed at characterizing a region/people through caricature.