Itihāsa / Mahābhārata chronicle / Droṇa · 36 of 50
36. The word Aśvatthāman
Droṇa (द्रोण)
On the fifteenth day Droṇa is past strategy and into slaughter. He fights as a man who knows his son is the future he is failing, and who fights harder for it. Kṛṣṇa says there is one sentence that will make him lay down his bow. He will believe it only from Yudhiṣṭhira, because Yudhiṣṭhira does not lie. The sentence is that Aśvatthāman is dead.
Bhīma kills an elephant named Aśvatthāman. Then he says, in Yudhiṣṭhira's hearing, that Aśvatthāman is dead. The name is true and the person is not. Yudhiṣṭhira is asked to confirm it. He says that Aśvatthāman is dead, and he adds, lower, the elephant. The poem says the qualifier is lost in the noise, and that this is the lie of a truthful man, and that his chariot, which had not touched the earth, comes down to it. Droṇa, believing his son gone, lays his weapons down. Dhṛṣṭadyumna kills him. The teacher dies disarmed. The page says that. It does not describe the blow. It also does not call the half-truth a small one. The war's commander has been stopped by a sentence constructed to be both accurate and false.
Aśvatthāman the son is alive, and he hears how his father was made to stop. He will not forget the word, or the man who was born to do the killing, or the king whose truth was used as the instrument. The Pāṇḍavas have the field for the day. They have also acquired the night that will answer this afternoon.
नेपालीमा
पन्ध्रौँ दिन द्रोणलाई रोक्ने एउटै वाक्य थियो, र त्यो वाक्य युधिष्ठिरले मात्र विश्वास दिलाउन सक्थे। भीमले अश्वत्थामा नामको हात्ती मारे। युधिष्ठिरले भने, अश्वत्थामा मर्यो, र मन्द स्वरमा थपे, हात्ती। कविताले भन्छ, थपिएको शब्द कोलाहलमा हरायो। त्यो झूट नबोल्ने मान्छेको झूट हो। उनको रथ, जो भूमिको माथि थियो, जमिनमा आयो। छोरा मरेको ठानेर द्रोणले हतियार राखे। धृष्टद्युम्नले निशस्त्र गुरुलाई मारे। यो पृष्ठले प्रहार लेख्दैन। आधा सत्यलाई सानो पनि भन्दैन। छोरा अश्वत्थामा जीवित थिए, र उनले पिताले कसरी हतियार छाड्नुपर्यो भन्ने सुने।