Gita 01.10 – Mulitiple meanings of same word reveal the possibilities of multiple interpretations

Hare Krishna so here Duryodhana is now giving a summary comparison of generals on his side with generals on his opponent's side by just naming the commander and the magnitude of the forces so he says means ours means unlimited atleast that is his intention so he is saying we are commanded by Bhishma so our forces are immeasurable and of these my opponents they are actually finite so they are limited they are inadequate and they are protected by Bhima it's interesting that the fears of his heart are coming out and although Bhima is neither the commander of the Pandava army nor is he in one sense the biggest threat but he is the biggest threat for Duryodhana so the commander of the Pandava army and the most formidable among the Pandavas was Arjuna that is Arjuna who actually wreaked havoc of course Bhima also did and it was Bhima who killed the hundred Kauravas and avenged the lost honour of Draupadi but the point was that that is Arjuna who had gone to heaven Arjuna had gone with celestial weapons so during most military assessments and the attempts were made to discourage or check Duryodhana from continuing on his foolish stubborn obstinacy for war then often he was first reminded of the strength of Arjuna and then about Bhima so either way Arjuna was of course powerful and Duryodhana knew he was Arjuna's power but to him he was thinking primarily of Bhima so he is thinking the Pandava army is protected by Bhima not by their commander Dhristadyama not by their foremost warrior Arjuna but he thinks of Bhima because for him Bhima is the opponent the dreaded opponent whom he wants to overcome and he has been fighting years decades practicing against effigies of Bhima beating them again and again with his mace pounding them to powder and smashing them to shards and hoping that one day he will get to do that to the real Bhima that's why on the opposite army because of his personal antipathy towards Bhima he sees their army and he sees that army as being led protected by Bhima so that's how he says their army is protected by Bhima so that this comes out for him because for him the most formidable threat, the most hated opponent is Bhima now Duryodhana prided himself on his mace fighting skills and when Bhima seemed to equal or even excel him, he couldn't tolerate it and that's why he had that long enmity against the Pandavas especially Bhima, he had enmity against the Pandavas especially Yudhishthir because Yudhishthir had usurped his position as the rightful heir, that's what he felt and Yudhishthir had fast become popular in the eyes of all the citizens and the courteous because of his own courteous manner whereas Yudhishthir Duryodhana due to his haughtiness due to his scornfulness he had alienated people and that's why when the crunch time came many people favoured Duryodhana Duryodhana who had favoured Duryodhana earlier now favoured Yudhishthir to express his assessment his assessment of the relative strength of the two armies that's why he says aparayaptam our strength is immeasurable, in other words parayaptam can mean finite or it can mean sufficient so then aparayaptam, the prefix a when added in Sanskrit can heighten the sense of the word or can reverse the sense of the word also and Duryodhana is of course assessing his forces and that's why he intends to use the word with a the sense of heightening the meaning so our forces are parayaptam, it doesn't mean sufficient it means large in numbers aparayaptam refers to practically measureless and finite now because the word has two meanings so whichever meaning can be used and that way the words can be analysed in our tradition, Prabhupada has followed mostly Baldevidya Bhushan writing his commentary and Baldevidya Bhushan translates this verse as referring to our strength is unlimited now in terms of military logistics it is true that the Kauravas strength was greater than that of the Pandavas and it is also true that Bhishma was far more experienced in warfare than Bhima so in that sense having a greater number and having a more experienced warrior, Duryodhana will say that our strength is far greater than theirs but Vishwanatha Krithakar gives a different meaning of the verse where he says aparayaptam refers to insufficient so our strength is insufficient whereas Pandavas strength is sufficient parayaptam, so by talking this way he wants to ensure that other generals also apart from those whom he has mentioned they should also be able to fight because they are going to play an important role also in the war and further he states that so atleast this could also be an intention with which he uses the word and other generals you also fight properly otherwise it could be slip of the tongue where he uses the same word which is being used over here but actually it comes out that it has a different meaning also so why does Chakravarthy translate that as, why would he consider that Kauravas sources are finite and Pandavas are infinite because in a war one's skill one's experience all these are important but even more important than all of them is the spirit of fighting and Bhishma never wanted this war to take place he repeatedly counseled Duryodhana to give up his greed and return the Pandavas their half of the kingdom and thus live in peace so if a warrior has strength, has skill has experience but doesn't have the spirit for fighting then the warrior will not fight very seriously so in terms of rasa, in terms of inner emotion Bhishma had a far greater fighting spirit Bhishma had been practically breathing fire when Draupadi was being dishonored in the assembly 13 years ago and he also wanted that you know they had been waiting for so long to take revenge and now he has the opportunity to take revenge so naturally he was waiting, longing for the war so therefore the idea is because Bhishma doesn't have much of a fighting spirit, he doesn't really want the war Bhima wants the war therefore that fight in terms of inner thought of fighting spirit the Pandavas forces are greater so this sort of analysis where the speaker speaks one thing but the words are re-analyzed so that they have a different meaning this is called as somebody wants to criticize but is actually praising, so he wants to criticize the Pandavas forces and praise his own forces but he ends up praising the Pandavas forces and criticizing his own forces, so sometimes acharyas may give different meanings for the same words and that's not contradictory, that's just from a alternative frame of reference from a different perspective that they are analyzing things, in terms of siddhanta, in terms of conclusions philosophical theological they will not be in contradiction with acharyas, but in terms of specifics both can be true because they both overall harmonize in the siddhanta so of course in this particular verse there is no specific siddhanta involved the point is that yes Taura's forces are bigger, their general is more experienced, so in terms of we could say external analysis the Kauravas have the upper hand, but in terms of another perspective because Bhima has a greater fighting spirit than Bhishma, therefore they have the upper hand and in that way the important point is he wants to Duryodhana wants his soldiers to be alert and confident, so in the next verse he will now specifically address his other generals but here by stating that our forces are infinite, he wants to reassure and boost the morale of his forces, I have them ready and eager to fight and if the verse is taken to mean our forces are insufficient then he wants his forces to know that I cannot rely on Bhishma alone, therefore all of you also have to fight and in this way he conveys his assessment of the comparative strength of the forces.

Bhagavad Gita.