Shloka 161
सर्वथा न हायं शल्य कर्ण: सूतकुलोद्धव: । सकुण्डलं सकवचं दीर्घबाहुं महारथम्
sarvathā na hāyaṃ śalya karṇaḥ sūtakulodbhavaḥ | sakuṇḍalaṃ sakavacaṃ dīrghabāhuṃ mahāratham ||
ဒုရ्यောဓနက ပြောသည်— «အို ရှလျ၊ ဤကර්ဏာသည် စုတကူလမှ မွေးဖွားသူသာ မဟုတ်။ နားကပ် (ကுண္ဍလ) ဆင်ယင်၍ ကာဝချ (ကာကွယ်ဝတ်စုံ) ဝတ်ဆင်ကာ လက်ရှည်သော မဟာရထီ—ရထားစစ်သူရဲကြီး—အဖြစ် သူသည် ထိပ်တန်းသူရဲကောင်းတစ်ဦးအဖြစ် ရပ်တည်နေ၏»။
दुर्योधन उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse highlights the tension between birth-based social labeling and demonstrated excellence: Duryodhana insists that Karṇa should not be diminished as merely “sūta-born,” emphasizing merit, heroic qualities, and martial stature as grounds for honor.
In the Karṇa Parva context, Duryodhana addresses Śalya (Karṇa’s charioteer) to defend and elevate Karṇa’s standing, describing him as a fully equipped, long-armed mahāratha—countering disparagement rooted in Karṇa’s supposed low birth.