Mahabharata characters 66 Duryodhana 5 Baffled in words, battles and spirits

This talk is a part of the “Fascinating Mahabharata Characters” series. To know more about this course, please visit: bhakticourses.com

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Brahma had become his charioteer. Hare Krishna. Welcome back to the Mahabharata character series.
We are discussing the concluding part of the epic battle and we are discussing also the concluding part of Duryodhana. So he is hiding in the lake and the hunters are going to inform Yudhishthira. The Pandavas and their forces have been searching for Duryodhana everywhere.
They want to finish the war and they know that without Duryodhana’s defeat and death, the war will not end. So the Pandavas after searching extensively and not finding him anywhere, they have come back to their camp and when the hunters come and inform the guards that they have news about Duryodhana, they are immediately assured into the presence of Yudhishthira and they tell how they overheard the conversation between the three Kaurava generals and Duryodhana who was inside the lake. Yudhishthira is pleased.
He rewards them profusely and then they immediately set off. So the Kaurava, the Pandavas are jubilant that they have overcome heavy almost insurmountable odds and they are now in the final stages of winning the war. So they come to the lake and they see that this lake has become completely motionless by the mystic power of Duryodhana and at this point Yudhishthira calls out, Oh Duryodhana, why are you hiding in a lake like this now? And he says you have caused the death of Bhishma, Drona, Karna and indeed millions of warriors after causing their death.
Now for your own life, how do you hide like a coward? Where is your honour? Come out and fight. So Duryodhana was inside the lake. He was enraged that he had been discovered.
He was wondering how it had happened but he accepted that it was somehow fate that had ordained it and he was determined to… he was himself undecided what to do. He just could not stomach the fact that he who had been the ruler of the world was now practically a destitute with all his friends and allies killed and with defeat and death staring him right now in the barrel. So he, as a staving tactic he said, as a postponing delaying tactic he said, Oh Yudhishthira, I am not afraid at all.
I am ready to fight with all of you but the war has exhausted me. That is why I am resting in the school lake. You should also rest and later on I will fight with you and I will crush your pride and defeat you.
Although his strength had been destroyed, his arrogance was still there and it expressed itself at every opportunity. Yudhishthira laughed and he said, Oh Duryodhana, we have rested enough. You also rested enough.
Come, now that you have sent all the warriors to the eternal rest, you should not demand rest. Come and fight with us and then the other Mandavas also and their warriors they challenged Duryodhana, come out and fight. How dare you hide like a coward and Duryodhana could not tolerate these insults and finally he spoke again trying another delaying tactic.
He said, Oh Yudhishthira, I am not afraid and I can crush all of you but seeing how all my friends, all my loved ones Bhishma, Drona and even Karna have been killed, Shakuni have been killed, he says, I have lost all desire for kingdom or opulence or life. He said, I give the kingdom to you. Take it.
Take the earth which is desolate of your kinsmen, of warriors and of wealth and rule it. I shall wear dear skin and live the life of an ascetic. Now Duryodhana, his arrogance was so great that now also he was trying to somehow find a high moral ground.
So he thought that I can look good in everyone’s eyes by giving charity of the kingdom to the Pandavas and let them look attached, let them look look sorry in the eyes of the world because they have killed everyone and I give them the charity and I am detached and I will look superior. So his thoughts and the sarcastic nature of his thoughts came out in the sarcastic tone and that is not lost to Yudhishthira. And Yudhishthira laughed.
He said, Oh Duryodhana, you have no right to give the earth as charity to me. The earth is not yours to give. It was never yours.
It was stolen away from us. And moreover, since it is not for me as a Kshatriya to accept charity, come out and fight. And then looking at his brother who is smiling to see Yudhishthira’s bellicose spirit, he said, Oh Duryodhana, why was it that when Keshava came to you and asked you for five villages, at that time you did not make this offer? He said, Indeed at that time you were so arrogant that you said that you will not give land enough to push a tip of a needle through.
So now all this is just to show you have been defeated and the whole world will see how you are defeated and destroyed. Come out and fight. And meet the end that you deserve for having caused the death of millions.
And seeing that, still Duryodhana then realised he had been outwitted and he kept silent. His anger increasing and sensing that angering him and insulting him was the only way that he would come out of his cowardly shell. The other Pandavas started taunting him, denigrating him and Duryodhana could tolerate it no more.
Then he said, Oh, then again he tried another relaying tactic. He knew that he was enraged, but he still, he was obvious, he was a realist in some ways. And he spoke again, Yudhishthira said, You know that I, you have weapons and chariots and animals with you and I am alone and I am unarmed except for my mace.
Duryodhana had fled, when he ran, he kept a chariot also behind so that it would not be detected and he had fled from there. But his mace was like a part of his body itself. He had practised and practised long with his mace.
So he had taken it with him. And he said, How can I fight with all of you? In a fair fight, I can defeat all of you one by one. I do not think it is right that I have to fight with all of you together without chariots and animals.
So Yudhishthira laughed and he said, Oh, Duryodhana, how was it that you did not remember this when you and other Mahamrithas killed Abhimanyu, who was without chariot, who dispossessed of weapons and armour and whom you attacked and killed? But nonetheless, he said, We will fight with you fairly. Come out and you will have a fair fight with us. And for now, Duryodhana realised that he had no more excuses left.
And he emerged from the water and he just came out straight up. The Pandavas started cheering and embracing each other saying that now the war would end. Duryodhana was incensed at their presumption that they would be victorious.
And he just came out of this mace and banged it on the earth. It seemed that the earth trembled as if in an earthquake. And he said, I will crush all of you as long as there is a fair fight.
So he said, I will fight with the mace and on the ground and later you decide who will fight with me. So before he spoke, he said, I will defeat all of you. So Yudhishthira said at that time that, oh Duryodhana, you can choose whichever weapon you want and whoever you want to fight with and we will defeat you.
So this had happened earlier and then Duryodhana said, I will fight with my mace. Now when Yudhishthira spoke this, you can fight with whichever weapon and whichever opponent. Krishna looked at Arjuna in concern.
He said, what had come over Yudhishthira? It was well known all over the world that Duryodhana had no match in mace fighting. Bhima was excellent, but Duryodhana was better as far as skill was concerned in mace fighting and Bhima was stronger and so he had a chance that he might win, but still it would be a close fight. So Krishna and Arjuna exchanged concerned glances which communicated a lot and they said that it was basically a game.
What had come over Yudhishthira? Now again, just when they had won the war, Yudhishthira had practically staked the whole kingdom again on a single throw of a dice. Just he had done 13 years ago. Now, dice was not there, but it was one match and Yudhishthira said that if you defeat any one of us, we will accept you as the victor.
So this was unnecessary magnanimity on the part of Yudhishthira and now Duryodhana came out. The water was dripping from his body and he glared at all the Pandavas. Bhima glared at him with unconcealed hatred.
They both knew that the final fight would be between both of them. Now Duryodhana’s arrogance was such that he could not accept a weaker opponent. Not only did he want to win throughout his life, his goal was not just to gain the kingdom of the Pandavas.
He had a deep-rooted insecurity which he wanted to replace by proving to the world that I am better than the Pandavas. So when he found that people were attracted to the Pandavas because of their virtue and he tried to, he was not virtuous, but he tried to create a pretence of being virtuous, of being charitable, of doing sacrifices. But when people were not taken in by that, he tried to get more wealth, more power.
He tried to dispossess the Pandavas of their power and wealth so that he would get the respect. And now when he was, when he had 11 Akshahunis as compared to the Pandavas’ 7 Akshahunis, at that time he had a thought, now just see by my strategies, by my cleverness, I have got so many allies. This is proof that I am stronger than the Pandavas, I am better than the Pandavas.
But he, and now he had seen, he just was not able to accept that and his superiority had been completely proven to be false. Practically everybody on his side was dead. So he wanted to somehow or the other prove his superiority over the Pandavas in a way that would be, would proclaim his glory in the world.
So because of that, he could have chosen the other Pandavas other than Bhima and he could have won against them easily. But he chose, he said, I will fight with Bhima and I will crush his pride. And Bhima, look at him, Bhima was eager to just pounce on him right now, smash him with his mace and destroy him.
Now Bhima at this point did not know what had transpired the, on the morning of the 18th. So actually on that morning, Duryodhana had been on his way after his morning bath to the tent where Gandhari had been there. Now Gandhari had heard on the, she had been hearing the narration from Sanjay and while she had been hearing from him, she heard how Bhima was killing one by one by one all of her sons.
So on the 17th morning, she decided that she must do something to protect her sons. And she started off and she came and by the time she reached, she heard that all her remaining sons including Dushyasan had been killed by Bhima and she fainted at that time. And then she decided that she would use all her mystic powers to protect at least one son of hers.
She knew Duryodhana was wicked and she had tried to get him to stop fighting the war when Krishna had come as Shantidoot and she had also done atonements for the grievous misdeed that Duryodhana had done against Draupadi and the Pandavas, especially Draupadi. So she knew Duryodhana was wrong but still it was her affection, the mother’s affection. She thought at least one son should live.
So when Duryodhana saw that, he was informed that his mother had come and he went to offer her respects, he was disconsolate, devastated at the way the tides of the war were turning. And then his mother told him, oh son, these are the ways of the war. She tried to solace him and she said, the least that I can do for you is with all my mystic power, I will glance upon you and when I glance upon you, then your body will become imbued with unbreakable strength.
Your body will become harder than mountain and nothing will be able to destroy you. So all, now Gandhari had performed asceticism for many years and just the fact that she had covered her eyes, not using her power of eyes and apart from that she had done religious vows, so by that she had got a lot of power. So the senses have power, when we use the senses for sense gratification, this power gets dissipated and the senses, that power is, when we regulate the senses, then that power is conserved.
So Gandhari by covering her eyes and by doing austerities had got mystic powers and she was planning to invest that in Duryodhana’s body. So she said, tomorrow morning come after bathing without any clothes and come to me as you were born and I will glance upon you and I will imbue you with power. So the next morning Duryodhana went to bathe and normally the Kshatriyas would bathe in the river nearby and they would have some cloth around their body but that day because that’s what his mother had told, he started coming without any clothes.
Now Krishna is the super soul in everyone’s heart and he knew what was happening. So immediately he was there and he looked at Duryodhana and he said, what is this? You know, no decent person walks around without any clothes. What has happened to your manners, Duryodhana? Now Krishna was expert and he spoke in such a way that Duryodhana felt mortified.
He was expert at speaking. He just looked down at him and started feeling embarrassed and he was moving his hands to cover him. Then he said, my mother told me to come like this.
So he said, that is okay but he said, at least cover your private parts. You know, you are no baby now. Now for a fully grown viral Kshatriya to be compared to a baby that is intolerable and he said yes and he immediately covered his private parts and he very well proceeded.
Then when he came in and told his mother, his mother said stand right in front of me and then when she was standing in front of me, he was standing in front of her, she removed the blindfold that she had put on her eyes and she glanced at Duryodhana and a sudden ray of light which was sort of charged with tremendous energy shot out through her eyes and it went over all into the body of Duryodhana and Duryodhana felt himself imbued with some mysterious and empowering vigour and then as Gandhari glanced over his full body and she saw the cloth around his thighs. She was dismayed. He said, what have you done? I told you to come without clothes.
He said that now your whole body will be invulnerable except for your thighs and he says why did you cover your thighs when I had told you to explicitly to specifically to come without any clothes. Duryodhana was confused. He did not want to anger his mother.
He was not sure how powerful his mother’s glance would be but he felt whatever help he was getting, he should take that help. So he said that Krishna told me to cover at least my private parts. So Gandhari shook her head in sorrow.
She said she realised that she had heard from the sages that Krishna is God and she knew if Krishna was against her then ultimately she could do nothing and she dejected, disappointed. She decided she had done what she could and she decided to depart back to Hastinapur to be by her husband’s side when eventually the final fatal news came. Now Duryodhana was also not sure how powerful he would be but his whole body except for the part around his thighs where he covered it with a cloth, everything else was invulnerable, invincible.
Practically it had made him invincible. So now when eventually the fight started, it was decided they were going to fight, so they decided to go to some ant panchak. Balramji came over there and the specifics of the fight we have discussed when we’re talking about Bhima, how they fought fiercely.
Both of them were extremely skilled but whereas Bhima was strong, Duryodhana was skilled and slowly but surely all of Duryodhana’s attacks, Bhima’s attacks, Duryodhana was dodging and he was hitting him and Bhima was angered and occasionally he would get in severe blows. At one point, Duryodhana hit a heavy blow on Bhima and because to hit that blow, Duryodhana had come closer. Bhima saw that opportunity, endured that blow stoically and then he hurled his mace and hurled it full into the side of Duryodhana.
It hit him fully and he flew off the ground and fell for a long distance away and he was stunned. He went into a swoon but in a few moments he got up and when Duryodhana saw the incredulous look on Bhima’s face, he says that blow which had been this full force would have caused a mountain to split apart and practically nothing had happened to Bhima, to Duryodhana. So Duryodhana gloated seeing the incredulous expression on Bhima’s face and he said, he thought, yes, he says that woman’s blessing was really something.
He had become invincible and now Duryodhana had, before the war had started, he had told Yudhishthir. He said, you be the referee in our fight because you know how a fair fight is to be fought. So Yudhishthir again taunted him and he said, where was your sense of fairness when Abhimanyu was killed? Still, we will give you a fair chance and slowly Bhima and Duryodhana were fighting.
Now as they were both hitting each other, Duryodhana was actually not getting hurt at all by Bhima’s blows whereas Duryodhana’s blows were hurting Bhima. But Bhima, because of his rage and because of his determination to win this war, he concealed the fact that he was wounded or that he was shaken. But the Pandavas were anxious.
They were getting more and more anxious because over a period of time, although Bhima did not show any pain, but by the repeated blows, Bhima’s armour cracked apart and Balram lauded Duryodhana’s skill in mace fighting. And as the fight went on, then Arjuna turned towards Krishna and said, who will win? And Krishna told that there is no way that Bhima can win if he fights by fair means. And he needs to, because of Gandhari’s blow also, the whole match had become, it was in one sense a sort of rigging of the match.
In one sense, if there is a cricket match and a batsman and a bowler is there and the batsman has got some blessing that way, even if the batsman misses the ball, still the ball will never hit the stumps. That means whatever happens, there is no way the batsman will get out. And now that was, it was practically something like that.
No matter what Bhima did, if Duryodhana’s body was invincible, then what could Bhima do? So now the only way in such a situation a warrior can proceed is find the chinks in the enemy’s armour. So if it had been a fair fight in the sense that the both of them were fighting with their own individual natural strength, then Bhima would have triumphed. But because Gandhari had blessed him, so now the odds had been changed dramatically and it had not been changed in an honest way.
Now we could say that mother blessing her son is honest. We could say that, but then if the son has acted dishonestly throughout his life and indeed the personification of adharma and by the success of that son again adharma will flourish over the world, in the world, then whatever is required for the sake of the world will flourish. And now Bhima had been planning to hit the thighs of Duryodhana, but after defeating in a fair fight, then he was going to break his thighs.
So Arjuna pointed to his thighs and Bhima as they were fighting, Bhima noticed it. And Bhima had also been thinking, how am I going to beat Duryodhana? So then in a move called avasthana, as Bhima swung his mace, Duryodhana jumped up to evade the blow. And as Duryodhana was coming down, at that time Bhima swung and hit the blow.
So now, normally that blow would have been at the level of the chest and that blow would not have been unfair. But in this particular case, when Duryodhana had jumped up and was coming down, so that same blow, which would have been at the level of the chest was now hit at the level of thigh. So Madhavacharya analyses how actually that blow was not unfair, not entirely unfair, in the sense that it was aimed at the level of the chest, not at the level of the thigh, it was not really aimed directly at the thigh, but circumstantially the opponent was in flight, in descent of the flight in such a way that the blow hit him at the level of the thigh.
So in his Tatparamahabhara, he gives a technical analysis to actually explain how that blow was not unfair. And that one blow which hit Duryodhana on his vulnerable part, it had been invested with Bhima’s forward charge and the full strength of his arms had struck Duryodhana. Duryodhana screamed in pain and he collapsed on the ground.
As they heard the sound of his thighs cracking and breaking, all the warriors cheered. They knew that the war was over. Balram was enraged and then Krishna came charging towards Bhima.
Krishna pacified him, caught him, restrained him, held him in his arms and said, the Pandavas are the sons of our aunt and they are the brothers of our sister. They are also related to our sister. He says, we must do their well-being and moreover, they are virtuous and they had to win and this was the only way they could have won.
And moreover, this had been ordained by Maitreya Rishi also. So therefore, the words of the Rishis have to come true and what Bhima did was not wrong. Now, what are Maitreya Rishi’s words? Actually, Maitreya Rishi, when the Pandavas had gone to, had been exiled to the forest, Maitreya Rishi had come and he had said to Duryodhana, I am extremely displeased.
Dhritarashtra primarily spoke, I am extremely displeased by the way you have dealt with Pandu’s sons. They are virtuous and they do not deserve to suffer like this. And he says, tell your son to amend his ways and to make peace with the Pandavas and give their kingdom back.
If he does not do so, then destruction will befall the Kuru dynasty. So at that time, Duryodhana had been so insolent, so overconfident and arrogant about his own power that he had smacked his thighs as if to show, I am so strong, what can anyone do? So Maitreya Rishi had become enraged, fool, the very thighs that you are so proud of, they will be broken in war and they will become the cause of your death. So at that time, Dhritarashtra begged, please forgive Duryodhana.
So he had said, if he follows my instructions and makes peace with the Pandavas, then I will be forgiven. Otherwise, my words will come true. And he departed in anger.
So Krishna reminded this vow. He said that Duryodhana has been killed due to his own misdeeds. And Balram was not satisfied by Krishna’s reasoning, but he accepted Krishna’s verdict anyway and he departed from there.
And then Bhima put, kicked the fallen Duryodhana on the head. Now this was against Kshatriya etiquette and Bhima was just so angry with him. He wanted to punish him more and more.
But then when he was doing it again, the other warriors checked him. And now Duryodhana was totally humiliated. And then Krishna told that now this person is dead.
He’s just like a piece of earth. There is no need for us to waste even one moment of time thinking about him. Let us depart from here and let us celebrate our victory.
For Duryodhana to hear these dismissive words was even more intolerable. He just tried to rise himself on the strength of his elbows. He was in mortal pain.
He says, oh Keshava, how dare you insult me like this? It is only because of an unfair blow that I have been killed. Do you think that I did not notice that it was you who told Partha and Partha signalled to Bhima to use this low blow? If you had fought fairly, then you would never have been able to kill me. I said that you will be smeared by infamy for the devious way in which you fought and killed me.
So Krishna got angry and he’s staring, levelling a steady stare at Duryodhana. He spoke, oh fool, it is because of your own misdeed that you have been killed. Indeed, the day you so grievously insulted Draupadi, that very day you should have been killed.
The day you dispossessed the Pandavas in a gambling match. You throughout your life committed atrocities against the Pandavas. And despite it all, I gave you the chance.
I came to you and asked for just five villages and you refused that. You sealed your own pact with death. And today you bear the consequences of your misdeeds.
And speaking of this, Krishna turned away from Duryodhana. Duryodhana, he could not tolerate being bested in a verbal match. Although now he knew he had been bested in the mace match.
Earlier also, when Yudhishthira had bested him in a verbal match, that’s how it encoded him to come out of the lake in which he had been hiding. Now he said, what do I care for your words? He says, I have lived virtuously, I have given charity, I have performed sacrifice, and I will ascend to heavens meeting the destination that is got by warriors who have fought honourably. He says, you on the other hand will have to stay on this earth and you will have to live with the earth bereaved of its wealth and bereaved of warriors.
Duryodhana knew that actually the war had taken a heavy cost on the royal treasury and the Pandavas would face problems. So he was trying to comfort himself and try to somehow twist reality in a way to prove his superiority. Now at this point, suddenly from the heavens, some celestial voices were heard and they said, Duryodhana has been killed unfairly.
Indeed, the main Kaurava warriors, Bhishma, Drona, Karna, all were killed unfairly. This is most wrong. When these celestial voices spoke like this, the Pandavas became anxious and they turned towards Krishna and Krishna consoled them.
He said, now these warriors were such that they could not have been killed by any other way and for the cause of dharma, if unfair means have to be used, especially against enemies who are themselves deceitful, then that is what is necessary too. This is indeed the code of morality. O Pandavas, do not grieve.
And they were consoled by Krishna’s words and they departed from there. So Mathacharya again explains that the gods played a trick on Duryodhana. Duryodhana had opportunity to repent for his sins, but even at the point of his death, he maintained his self-righteousness and thus he was tricked away from the opportunity of repenting and begging forgiveness for his misdeeds.
Now, of course, Ashwatthama, Kripa, eventually they came. They had been hiding when the Pandavas were there, but after Pandava warriors departed, they came and Ashwatthama heard that Duryodhana had been killed unfairly. She got angry.
She said, I will rid the earth of these Pandavas. Duryodhana asked Kripa to get water from the nearby river and then he sanctified it and he said, go ahead and attain victory. Duryodhana did not have much hope, but still seeing Ashwatthama’s vigour, he encouraged him and then we will discuss when we talk about Ashwatthama, how he brutally slaughtered everyone who was sleeping in the Pandava camp and then when he realised that he had killed the Pandava sons and not the Pandavas, he was mortified, but he had wanted to please Duryodhana.
So, he just took the five Pandava sons heads and pretended before Duryodhana that these were Duryodhana’s, that five Pandavas. When Duryodhana heard that the five Pandavas had been killed, he was delighted. He was now, actually at that time, he was lying far away in a forest lake and because his body was almost, he was motionless.
So, wild beasts were around him and Duryodhana was practically not able to move. Still, by moving his hands and his gestures, he was trying to push the beasts away. So, when Kripa, Krita, Varmana, Ashwatthama came, they immediately came with their weapons, they drove away the beasts and Kripa said, how amazing it is.
Indeed, the ways of destiny are inconceivable that that king who had ruled the earth has now fallen in the earth and is almost becoming meat for the wild animals. Indeed, nothing in this world is permanent. So, as Kripa was lamenting, Ashwatthama told the news and Duryodhana became jubilant.
He said, bring me the heads and when he brought the heads, he used the last bit of his strength and he crushed those heads and those heads crushed to powder. As soon as they crushed to powder, Duryodhana realised. Duryodhana said to Ashwatthama, oh these are not the heads of the Pandavas, they look similar but those heads could not be crushed even with all my strength and yet in my weakened condition right now, I have easily crushed these heads.
They are the sons, the heads of the sons of Pandavas. Oh Ashwatthama, what have you done? They were the successors who were surviving in our dynasty. Oh, now our dynasty has become, has ended.
Oh, what have you done? He was lamenting. His own sons had been killed, his own brothers had been killed and the Pandava sons were dead. So, now again in the materialistic consciousness, the idea is that I will continue on through my Xerox copies, through my descendants and when he thought that okay that nobody in our dynasty is going to continue.
He had been proud to call himself a Kaurava, a descendant of the Kuru dynasty. In fact, he did not want the Pandavas to be considered Kauravas but he wanted the Kuru dynasty to continue and when he saw that the Kuru dynasty is not going to continue, he was devastated and bitter disappointment, lamenting at what Ashwatthama had done, he died and this is what it represents. In this world, a person who seeks materialistic gains and especially who sacrifices virtue for seeking materialistic gains, that person ultimately ends in misery.
Duryodhana personified envy and greed and how that combination, even if through some scheming, ethical or unethical, if the person becomes successful, the person is never contended and that person will ultimately be dissatisfied and devastated. Now, one who thinks that the joy and success of one’s life is to enjoy the displeasure of others, to enjoy the envy in the eyes of others. Today, there are advertisements in today’s culture saying purchase this car and enjoy the envy in others’ eyes.
This is the Duryodhana standard of enjoyment. So, one who thinks that by making others suffer, my superiority and glory will be proved, that person will never be satisfied in life and Duryodhana demonstrates this truth through his tragic life. Tragic, not because of some evil destiny, but tragic because of his own evil choices.
Thank you. Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna.
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