Shloka 17
अध्याय ९ — दुर्योधनस्य अन्त्यावस्था, विलापः, तथा सौप्तिक-प्रतिवृत्तम्
Duryodhana’s Final Condition, Lamentation, and the Night’s Report
उपासत द्विजा: पूर्वमर्थहेतोर्यमी श्वरम् उपासते च तं हाद्य क्रव्यादा मांसहेतव:
upāsata dvijāḥ pūrvam arthahator yamīśvaram | upāsate ca taṃ hādya kravyādā māṃsahetavaḥ ||
克利波说道：“从前，许多婆罗门为求财与庇护而侍坐在那位国王左右；而今日，就在同一处，食肉的禽兽围坐在他身旁，只为那一口肉。”
कृप उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse contrasts two kinds of ‘attendance’ on power—earlier, brahmins seeking wealth and royal favor; now, flesh-eaters seeking meat—highlighting how violence and the collapse of dharma degrade a royal court from a place of patronage and counsel into a site of death and predation.
In the Sauptika Parva’s aftermath of the night massacre, Kṛpa laments the changed condition around the fallen ruler: where learned men once gathered for support and gifts, scavengers and predators now gather, drawn by corpses—an image of the battlefield’s grim reversal of social order.