एष गच्छति सौभद्रः पार्थानाम् अग्रतो युवा ॥
नन्दयन् सुहृदः सर्वान् राजानं च युधिष्ठिरम् ॥
नकुलं सहदेवं च भीमसेनं च पाण्डवम् ॥
बन्धून् संबन्धिनश् चान्यान् मध्यस्थान् सुहृदस् तथा ॥
नास्य युद्धे समं मन्ये कं चिद् अन्यं धनुर्धरम् ॥
इच्छन् हन्याद् इमां सेनां किमर्थम् अपि नेच्छति ॥
eṣa gacchati saubhadraḥ pārthānām agrato yuvā ||
nandayan suhṛdaḥ sarvān rājānaṃ ca yudhiṣṭhiram ||
nakulaṃ sahadevaṃ ca bhīmasenaṃ ca pāṇḍavam ||
bandhūn saṃbandhinaś cānyān madhyasthān suhṛdas tathā ||
nāsya yuddhe samaṃ manye kaṃ cid anyaṃ dhanurdharam ||
icchan hanyād imāṃ senāṃ kimartham api necchati ||
"Here strides this young son of Subhadra ahead of the Parthas, gladdening all his companions, and King Yudhishthira, Nakula and Sahadeva, and Bhimasena the Pandava, his kinsmen, relatives by marriage, other neutral onlookers, and friends as well. I consider no other archer his equal in battle. Should he desire it, he would destroy this host; why then does he not want to?"
456556fc4780 · published Jul 19, 2026, 3:22:09 PM UTC
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Drona pays the enemy the highest praise: 'no archer equals him.' A true master honors mastery without envy, acknowledging superiority even where it harms his own cause. His astonished question — 'why does he not want [to destroy us]?' — is telling: he attributes to the youth not incapacity but restraint, honoring in him both valor and measure. The verse teaches that a great soul can sincerely admire an adversary's worth without diminishing it out of enmity; that acknowledging an enemy as unequaled is a mark of nobility, not weakness; and that Drona, seeing in the youth both strength and restraint, displays a rare gift — judging a person by the truth, not by whose side he is on.