गतौ हि सैन्धवं वीरौ युयुधानवृकोदरौ ॥
संप्राप्तं तद् इदं द्यूतं यत् तच् छकुनिबुद्धिजम् ॥
न सभायां जयो वृत्तो नापि तत्र पराजयः ॥
इह नो ग्लहमानानाम् अद्य तात जयाजयौ ॥
यान् स्म तान् ग्लहते घोराञ् शकुनिः कुरुसंसदि ॥
अक्षान् संमन्यमानः स प्रा क्शरास् ते दुरासदाः ॥
gatau hi saindhavaṃ vīrau yuyudhānavṛkodarau ||
saṃprāptaṃ tad idaṃ dyūtaṃ yat tac chakunibuddhijam ||
na sabhāyāṃ jayo vṛtto nāpi tatra parājayaḥ ||
iha no glahamānānām adya tāta jayājayau ||
yān sma tān glahate ghorāñ śakuniḥ kurusaṃsadi ||
akṣān saṃmanyamānaḥ sa prā kśarās te durāsadāḥ ||
"For the two heroes — Yuyudhana and Vrikodara — have gone [to] the Sindhu king. This [fateful] game has now arrived, the one born [from] the mind of Shakuni. Not in the assembly did victory take place, nor defeat there; here, [among] us who are playing, today, O dear one, [lies] victory-or-defeat. Those terrible [dice] that Shakuni cast in the Kuru assembly, reckoning them as dice — [now] these are arrows, hard to withstand."
30e3ba2016b1 · published Jul 19, 2026, 4:17:33 PM UTC
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Drona perceives the essence of it: "saṃprāptaṃ tad idaṃ dyūtaṃ yat tat śakunibuddhijam" — Shakuni's game has returned as a battlefield. The dice of that hall have turned into arrows; the outcome is decided not in the assembly, but here. It is telling that the wrong begun in a game is played out in blood. The verse teaches that evil sown in deceit is reaped in reality: a treacherous game begun in a hall inevitably returns as war — and what was once thrown as dice for the sake of humiliation now flies as arrows for the sake of death.