Shloka 23
अयं करिकराकार: पीनस्तनविमर्दन: । गोसहस्रप्रदाता च क्षत्रियान्तकर: कर:,“यह है हाथीकी सूँड़के समान मोटा मेरा हाथ, जो रमणीके ऊँचे उरोजोंका मर्दन, सहस्रों गोदान तथा क्षत्रियोंका विनाश करनेवाला है। भीमसेन! इसी हाथसे मैंने सभामें बैठे हुए कुरुकुलके श्रेष्ठ पुरुषों और तुमलोगोंके देखते-देखते द्रौपदीके केश खींचे थे!
sañjaya uvāca |
ayaṃ karikarākāraḥ pīnastanavimardanaḥ |
gosahasrapradātā ca kṣatriyāntakaraḥ karaḥ ||
Sanjaya said: “This hand of mine—thick like an elephant’s trunk—has crushed the full breasts of women; it has bestowed gifts of a thousand cows; and it has also been a hand that brings the destruction of kshatriyas. Bhimasena, with this very hand I once dragged Draupadi by the hair in the assembly, while the foremost men of the Kuru line sat there and you all looked on.” The verse frames the same instrument (the ‘hand’) as capable of generosity and grievous wrongdoing, sharpening the ethical contrast between dharmic giving and adharma committed through humiliation and violence—an admission that past sin now fuels present enmity and war.
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse highlights moral ambiguity and accountability: the same ‘hand’ that performs socially praised acts like great charity can also commit grave adharma through sexualized violence and public humiliation. It underscores that past wrongdoing—especially against the vulnerable—creates enduring ethical debt that ripens into conflict and retribution.
In the war context narrated by Sanjaya, a warrior boasts to Bhima about his powerful hand, recalling both his generosity (giving a thousand cows) and his notorious crime in the Kuru assembly—dragging Draupadi by the hair in front of elders and heroes. The recollection intensifies the personal and dharmic stakes behind the battle.