Two vows are cited in Droṇaparvan chapter 118: (1) when Arjuna tells Bhūriśravas why he sliced off his arm without being seen and (2) when Yuyudhāna justifies killing Bhūriśravas who was already disabled and had entered meditation to die.
Bhūriśravas appeals to Arjuna's sense of fair fighting on three descending levels:
(1) Would his action be approved by his gurus - Yudhiṣṭhira, Indra, Rudra, Droṇa, or Kṛpa?
(2) Does Arjuna himself think it is right?
āryeṇa sukaraṃ hy āhur ārya-karma Dhanaṃjaya
anārya-karma tv āryeṇa suduṣkarataraṃ bhuvi
"They say that noble behaviour is easy for a noble man, Dhanaṃjaya, and ignoble behaviour by a noble man is comparatively very difficult anywhere on earth."
(3) How could Arjuna, of royal descent and a Kauraveya especially, depart from kṣatra-dharma and, listening to Kṛṣṇa, follow the example of those unscrupulous and despicable mixed-castes, the Vṛṣṇis and Andhakas?
Arjuna replies:
mama sarve'pi rājāno jānanty etan mahāvratam
na śakyo māmako hantuṃ yo me syād bāṇa-gocare
"All kings yet know this grand vow of mine: it's not possible to kill my man if he is within arrow-range of me."
The kartavya to protect one's own (a student, friend, and ally, in this case) overrules fair fighting in the moral code that Arjuna learned from Kṛṣṇa.
Arjuna argues that it was not against dharma to slice off the weapon-bearing arm that was about to kill Yuyudhāna. He sarcastically asks Bhūriśravas, which dhārmika wouldn't approve of the slaying of young Abhimanyu who had dropped his weapons and lost his chariot and armour?
After Yuyudhāna cuts off Bhūriśravas's head, he also defends his action by saying that those who cloak themselves in dharma are the ones who killed Subhadrā's defenceless young son. Then he cites his vow that conveniently describes the specifics of this exact situation:
mayā tv etat pratijñātaṃ kṣepe kasmiṃś cid eva hi
yo māṃ niṣpiṣya saṃgrāme jīvan hanyāt padā ruṣā
sa me vadhyo bhavec chatrur yady api syān muni-vrataḥ
"But I had vowed this on the occasion of some insult or other, really: whoever presses me down in battle, and while I live, strikes me furiously with his foot, he'll be killed by me, even if that enemy has taken a recluse's vow."
Does anyone honestly think that Yuyudhāna really made this vow in anticipation of being kicked by a recluse? And even if he did, is "I said I would do it" a valid excuse to kill a noncombatant?
Yuyudhāna deflects attention from his own suspicious argument by sarcastically asking whether the onlookers are sophists who think he was already dead when he was struggling to hit back while Bhūriśravas still had that arm. He argues that he would have avenged himself if not for Arjuna intervening to keep his own vow. Arguing that predestination guided his action, so it cannot be adharma, he concludes by quoting Vālmīki (actually a speech by Indrajit pretending to kill Sītā at Rāmāyaṇa, Yuddhakāṇḍa 68.27): pīḍākaram amitrāṇāṃ yat syāt kartavyam eva tat - whatever causes harm to your enemies, just do it!
Yuyudhāna's argument is essentially that a living warrior has a kartavya to keep fighting, even when an ally has won the fight for him and the enemy has given up.
Unwilling to suffer the cost of a fair fight, both Arjuna and Yuyudhāna argue that fulfilment of a real or fictitious vrata/pratijñā/kartavya is more important.
Edited by BrhannadaArmour - 2 years ago
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