विमृशन्न् एव कालं तं परिचिन्त्य जनार्दनः ॥
मेने प्राप्तं स षट्त्रिंशं वर्षं वै केशिसूदनः ॥
पुत्रशोकाभिसंतप्ता गान्धारी हतबान्धवा ॥
यद् अनुव्याजहारार्ता तद् इदं समुपागतम् ॥
इदं च तद् अनुप्राप्तम् अब्रवीद् यद् युधिष्ठिरः ॥
पुरा व्यूढेष्व् अनीकेषु दृष्ट्वोत्पातान् सुदारुणान् ॥
vimṛśann eva kālaṃ taṃ paricintya janārdanaḥ ||
mene prāptaṃ sa ṣaṭtriṃśaṃ varṣaṃ vai keśisūdanaḥ ||
putraśokābhisaṃtaptā gāndhārī hatabāndhavā ||
yad anuvyājahārārtā tad idaṃ samupāgatam ||
idaṃ ca tad anuprāptam abravīd yad yudhiṣṭhiraḥ ||
purā vyūḍheṣv anīkeṣu dṛṣṭvotpātān sudāruṇān ||
Reflecting on that time and weighing it fully, Janardana — the Slayer of Keshin — reckoned that the thirty-sixth year had arrived. What the suffering Gandhari, scorched by grief for her sons and bereft of her kin, had once spoken — that has now come to pass. And that too has now come to pass which Yudhishthira spoke long ago, when the armies were arrayed and he beheld the most fearful portents.
c40f061abc73 · published Jun 21, 2026, 1:10:00 AM UTC
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Krishna perceives in the arrived hour the fulfilment of Gandhari's word: once, having lost her sons, she had cursed Him so that His own clan too would perish by mutual slaughter, as her children had perished. The Lord did not avert that curse, and now receives its fulfilment. Here lies a mystery: the Almighty permits the curse of a grieving mother to be fulfilled upon His own clan — not under compulsion, but by consent, turning even her sorrow into an instrument of His design. The verse teaches that the word of righteous grief carries a power to which even the Lord does not oppose Himself, for He Himself endowed it with that power; and that He, omnipotent, willingly bows beneath the curse and permits its fulfilment, so that through a mother's anguish and through the twilight of the clan the hidden plan of concluding His earthly play might be accomplished.