Chapter 84

“Sanjaya said, ‘I will tell thee all, for everything hath been witnessedby me with my own eyes. Listen calmly. Great is thy fault. Even as anembankment is useless after the waters (of the field) have flowed away,even so, O king, are these lamentations of thine useless! O bull ofBharata’s race, do not grieve. Wonderful as are the decrees of theDestroyer, they are incapable of being transgressed. Do not grieve, Obull of Bharata’s race, for this is not new. If thou hadst formerlyrestrained Yudhishthira, the son of Kunti, and thy sons also from thematch at dice, this calamity then would never have overtaken thee. If,again, when time for battle came, hadst thou restrained both the partiesinflamed by wrath, this calamity then would never have overtaken thee.If, again, hadst thou formerly urged the Kurus to slay the disobedientDuryodhana, then this calamity would never have overtaken thee. (If thouhadst done any of these acts), the Pandavas, the Panchalas, the Vrishnis,and the other kings would then have never known thy wrong-headedness. If,again, doing, thy duty as a father, thou hadst, by placing Duryodhana inthe path of righteousness, caused him to tread along it, then thiscalamity would never have overtaken thee. Thou art the wisest man onearth. Forsaking eternal virtue, how couldst thou follow the counsels ofDuryodhana and Karna and Sakuni? These lamentations of thine, therefore,O king, that I hear,–of thine that art wedded to (worldly) wealth, seemto me to be honey mixed with poison. O monarch, formerly Krishna did notrespect king Yudhishthira, the son of Pandu, or Drona, so much as he usedto respect thee. When, however, he came to know thee as one fallen offfrom the duties of a king, since then Krishna hath ceased to regard theewith respect. Thy sons had addressed various harsh speeches towards thesons of Pritha. Thou wast indifferent to those speeches then, O thou thatwieldest sovereignty, unto thy sons. The consequence of that indifferenceof thine hath now overtaken thee. O sinless one, the ancestralsovereignty is now in danger. (If it is not so), obtain now the wholeearth subjugated by the sons of Pritha.[134] The kingdom that the Kurusenjoy, as also their fame had been acquired by the Pandus. The virtuoussons of Pandu added to that kingdom and that fame. Those achievements,however, of theirs became (to them) barren of fruit as they came incontact with thee, since they were deprived of even their ancestralkingdom by the covetous self. Now, O king, when the battle has begun,thou censurest thy sons indicating diverse faults of theirs. This isscarcely becoming. The Kshatriyas, while fighting, do not take care oftheir very lives. Indeed, those bulls among Kshatriyas fight, penetratinginto the array of the Parthas. Who else, indeed, save the Kauravas, wouldventure to fight with that force which is protected by Krishna andArjuna, by Satyaki and Vrikodara? Them that have Arjuna for theirwarrior, them that have Janardana for their counsellor, them that haveSatyaki and Vrikodara for their protectors, what mortal bowman is therethat would dare fight with, save the Kauravas and those that arefollowing their lead? All that is capable of being achieved by friendlykings endued with heroism and observant of the duties of Kshatriyas, allthat is being done by the warriors on the Kauravas side. Listen now,therefore, to everything that hath taken place in the terrible battlebetween those tigers among men viz., the Kurus and the Pandavas.'”