Itihāsa / Mahābhārata chronicle / Sauptika · 41 of 50
41. The night
Sauptika (सौप्तिक)
The five brothers are not in their own camp. They are with Kṛṣṇa, or resting apart, in the safety victors allow themselves. Aśvatthāman will not accept the day. He sees an owl kill sleeping crows, and he takes it as a permission. Kṛpa and Kṛtavarman come with him to the Pāṇḍava camp after dark. He enters alone. They hold the gates. The guards die. The sleepers die. Draupadī's sons die. Dhṛṣṭadyumna, who killed the disarmed teacher, dies. This page says the camp was killed in its sleep. It does not describe how.
In the morning Draupadī stands among the bodies of her children and asks for a life in return, or for the jewel Aśvatthāman wears in his head. The brothers find him. He is not killed. The jewel is taken. A curse is laid on him, to wander, for the camp and for a thing he does in the same hours to a child not yet born. The page names the wandering. It does not describe the jewel's taking.
The war is over, and the victory has been emptied overnight. Five brothers live. Their sons, except one line that is still in a womb, do not. Duryodhana, dying, is told the camp has been killed, and he dies believing his side has answered. The answer is a crime by the standard the eve recited. The poem does not build a speech that makes it anything else.
नेपालीमा
पाँच भाइ आफ्नै शिविरमा थिएनन्। अश्वत्थामाले सुतेका काग मारेको उल्लु देख्यो, र त्यसलाई अनुमति ठान्यो। कृप र कृतवर्मासहित ऊ रातमा पाण्डव शिविर पुग्यो। ऊ एक्लै भित्र पस्यो; कृप र कृतवर्माले ढोका थुने। पहरेदार मरे। सुतेकाहरू मरे। द्रौपदीका छोरा मरे। धृष्टद्युम्न मरे। यो पृष्ठले सुतेको शिविर मारियो भन्छ। तरिका लेख्दैन। बिहान छोराहरूका शवबीच उभिएकी द्रौपदीले बदलामा एउटा प्राण, वा अश्वत्थामाको शिरको मणि मागिन्। दाजुभाइले उसलाई भेटे। अश्वत्थामा मारिएन। मणि लिइयो। उसलाई घुम्ने श्राप दिइयो, शिविरका लागि र त्यही बेला नजन्मेको बच्चामाथि गरेको कामका लागि। यो पृष्ठले भौंतारिने कुरा भन्छ। मणि निकाल्ने तरिका लेख्दैन। विजय रातारात रित्तो भयो। पाँच भाइ बाँचे, तर उनीहरूका छोराहरू बाँचेनन्, एउटा वंश गर्भमा रहेकोबाहेक।