Itihāsa / Mahābhārata chronicle / Udyoga · 28 of 50
28. The eve, and Sanatsujāta
Udyoga (उद्योग)
This hour is earlier in the Udyoga, before Kṛṣṇa's embassy. Sañjaya has come back from the Pāṇḍavas, and Vidura has counselled the king through the night. Dhṛtarāṣṭra still cannot sleep. He asks Vidura for a teaching that will make the night bearable, and Vidura, who is wise and who is not a priest of liberation, says the teacher for this fear is Sanatsujāta. The sage comes. What he says, that death is the bewilderment and not the end of a body, has its own shelf, the Sanatsujātīya, in the vulgate chapters 41 to 46 of this parva. This page does not sit it. It marks the hour. A blind king asks what death is, while a generation can still be kept from dying.
The war comes anyway. When the armies face each other at Kurukṣetra, Bhīṣma is made commander of the Kuru side, on conditions he states in public. He will not kill the five brothers. He will not fight Śikhaṇḍin, whom he takes as the woman Ambā returned. Karṇa hears the slight that comes with Bhīṣma's command, the old dismissal of the charioteer's son, and he swears he will not fight while Bhīṣma stands. The best archer on Duryodhana's side waits off the field. Droṇa accepts command of nothing yet, and already regrets the war, and will fight it.
Rules are spoken, as if a war of this size could be a rite. Do not strike the fallen. Do not strike the man who has surrendered. Do not strike the one whose weapon is gone. Stop at sunset. The poem is careful to say the rules, because it is about to spend eighteen days breaking them, and it wants the reader to have heard them first.
नेपालीमा
यो घडी उद्योगपर्वमै पर्छ, कृष्णको दूतकार्यभन्दा अघि। सञ्जय पाण्डवहरूकहाँबाट फर्केपछि र विदुरले रातभर सल्लाह दिएपछि पनि निदाउन नसकेका धृतराष्ट्रले विदुरसँग मृत्युबारे सोधे। विदुरले सनत्सुजातलाई बोलाए। मृत्यु मोह हो भन्ने शिक्षाको आफ्नै खण्ड छ, सनत्सुजातीय, प्रचलित पाठको उद्योगपर्व ४१ देखि ४६। यो पृष्ठले श्लोक समावेश गर्दैन, घडीलाई मात्र चिनाउँछ। अन्धा राजाले मृत्यु के हो भनेर सोध्छन्, जबकि एउटा पुस्तालाई अझै मर्नबाट जोगाउन सकिन्छ। युद्ध आयो। कुरुक्षेत्रमा सेना आमनेसामने भए। भीष्म सेनापति भए, सर्तसहित। उनले पाँच भाइलाई मार्ने छैनन्, शिखण्डीसँग लड्ने छैनन्। भीष्मको सेनापतित्वसँगै आएको अपमान सुनेर कर्णले भीष्म उभिएसम्म मैदानमा नआउने शपथ लिए। नियम भनियो: ढलेकालाई नहान्ने, हतियार छोडेकालाई नहान्ने, सूर्यास्तमा रोकिने। कविताले नियम पहिले सुनाउँछ, किनकि अठार दिनमा ती तोडिनेछन्।