टीका

Commentary

Now Duryodhana names his own champions, and what a list it is. He begins with Drona himself — “bhavaan,” Your Honour — a respectful second-person address that acknowledges both the teacher’s dignity and his crucial role in what is to come. Then Bhishma, the grandsire, the invincible patriarch who had sworn a terrible vow of celibacy and undying loyalty to the throne of Hastinapura, regardless of who sat on it. No greater warrior breathed on the field of Kurukshetra. Bhishma alone was considered capable of holding off the entire Pandava army.

Then Karna — perhaps the most tragic figure in the whole of the Mahabharata. Born of Kunti before her marriage to King Pandu, abandoned at birth, raised by a charioteer’s family, denied recognition by the warrior class because of his supposed low birth, Karna had become Duryodhana’s closest friend and most valued ally. His loyalty to Duryodhana was absolute and genuine, born of gratitude for the one man who had ever treated him as an equal. He was also, by some measures, Arjuna’s equal in archery — which made him the most dangerous man alive to the Pandava cause.

Vikarna deserves special mention: he was one of the hundred sons of Dhritarashtra, yet he was the one Kaurava prince who had spoken out against the humiliation of Draupadi in the Kaurava court. He appears here as a warrior on his brother’s side, fighting a war he perhaps privately wished had never begun. The Gita does not editorialize — it simply names these men and lets us feel the weight of who they are.