Shloka 168
भीष्मकृतः पाण्डवपक्ष-महारथ-प्रशंसा
Bhishma’s appraisal of Pandava-aligned chariot-warriors
इति श्रीमहाभारते उद्योगपर्वणि रथातिरथसंख्यानपर्वणि भीष्मकर्णसंवादे अष्टषष्ट्यधिकशततमो<ध्याय:
iti śrīmahābhārate udyogaparvaṇi rathātirathasaṅkhyānaparvaṇi bhīṣmakarṇasaṃvāde aṣṭaṣaṣṭyadhikaśatatamo 'dhyāyaḥ
ဤသို့ဖြင့် သီရိမဟာဘာရတ၏ ဥဒ္ယောဂပရဝ၌—ရထားစစ်သည်နှင့် အတိရထတို့ကို ရေတွက်ဖော်ပြသော အပိုင်း၌—ဘီရှ္မနှင့် ကာဏ္ဏတို့၏ ဆွေးနွေးပြောဆိုမှုအတွင်း—အခန်း တစ်ရာခြောက်ဆယ်ရှစ် ပြီးဆုံး၏။
भीष्म उवाच
Educational Q&A
Though this line is a colophon rather than a doctrinal verse, it highlights a key Mahābhārata concern: before war, leaders must realistically assess strength and responsibility. Enumerating rathas/atirathas is not mere boasting—it underscores accountability, the weight of command decisions, and the ethical gravity of unleashing violence.
The text marks the close of a chapter in the Udyoga Parva within the Bhīṣma–Karṇa conversation, situated in the section that counts and classifies elite chariot-warriors. It functions as an editorial/narrative boundary indicating that the preceding discussion belongs to this strategic catalogue in the run-up to the great war.