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STORIES · THE MAHĀBHĀRATA · Udyoga
Bhīṣma's conditions: the rathas and atirathas assessed
Classical
Duryodhana divided his eleven akṣauhiṇīs and spent a night preparing. In the morning he approached Bhīṣma with folded hands and said that no army can win without a single commander: he told the old tale of how the brāhmaṇas, three groups together, were repeatedly beaten by the kshatriyas of the Haihaya clan, because the kshatriyas obeyed one leader, until the brāhmaṇas chose their own commander and won. He asked Bhīṣma to lead the army like Śukra. Bhīṣma accepted, but set terms. He loved the Pāṇḍavas as much as Duryodhana's side and would pray for their good, though he would fight for the Kauravas because he had been bound by their wealth. No warrior could match him but Arjuna, and Arjuna would never fight him openly. He could not destroy the Pāṇḍavas, but he would kill ten thousand fighters every day.
Then he added a second condition. Either Karṇa fought first, or he did. The Suta's son boasted constantly of rivalling him. Karṇa answered at once: ‘As long as Gaṅgā's son lives, I will never fight. After Bhīṣma is slain I will meet the wielder of Gāṇḍīva.’ Duryodhana accepted both conditions, installed Bhīṣma as commander, and the army cheered. Drums and conches sounded. Though the sky was clear, a shower of blood fell, and earthquakes shook the camp.
Later Duryodhana asked Bhīṣma to tell him who on each side counted as a ratha, an atiratha, or a lesser fighter. Bhīṣma obliged, though he made it sound like a bard's catalogue. He began with Duryodhana and his brothers, ranked Aśvatthāman as a mahāratha who could burn the three worlds, called Śakuni a single ratha, and worked down through the kings. Some he called simple rathas and others mahārathas; Bāhlīka he named an atiratha, who never turned back from a fight, and the Rākṣasa Alambuṣa a mahāratha, hungry to avenge old quarrels. Of Karṇa he said only that he counted him as half a ratha, and that is the line that gave offence.
Karṇa was furious. He told Bhīṣma that he put up with such barbed words only for Duryodhana's sake, that Bhīṣma was an enemy of the whole world and especially of the Kurus, and that to insult warriors as he did was to weaken the army. Age, grey hair and wealth did not make a mahāratha, he said; strength did. He threatened that he alone would destroy the Pāṇḍava army and that Bhīṣma would only get the credit. Bhīṣma answered calmly and went on, now rating the Pāṇḍava side: Yudhiṣṭhira a ratha, Bhīma worth eight, the twins and Draupadī's sons mahārathas, Dhṛṣṭadyumna, Sātyaki and Abhimanyu among them, and Arjuna beyond comparison.
He ended with a statement that would decide the war. He would fight Kṛṣṇa, Arjuna and every other king he could find, but he would not touch Śikhaṇḍin, even if he saw him rushing with raised weapons. Śikhaṇḍin had been born a woman, and Bhīṣma had vowed in the presence of all the kings that he would never strike a woman or one who had been a woman. Duryodhana asked why he would not kill Śikhaṇḍin, and the answer is the story of Ambā. Thus the commander of the Kaurava army had publicly told the world exactly how he could be beaten.
Told by Vaiśampāyana → Janamejaya
Who: Bhīṣma, Duryodhana, Karṇa, Aśvatthāman, Śalya, Śikhaṇḍin, Yudhiṣṭhira, Bhīma, Arjuna
Bound to
Ambā curse
The yaksha Sthuna lends Shikhandi his sex origin
The eight Vasus, Vasishtha's cow, and Bhishma's birth origin
The covenants of battle, Vyāsa's gift of sight, and Yuyutsu's change of sides origin
Karna's curses: the beetle, the cow, and the sinking wheel curse
Places: Hastināpura, Kurukṣetra
Where this comes from
- read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (read via archive.org copy of the sacred-texts text) Udyoga Parva, Sections CLVI–CLXXIV (commander chosen in CLVII; the ranking in CLXVI–CLXXIII)