Kartavya aur Pratigya ka Mahatva : Creator note Pg 3 - Page 6

In response to Droṇa's vow, Arjuna vows on the eleventh day that he will neither fight Droṇa nor leave Yudhiṣṭhira unprotected. This vow serves him well on the fourteenth day, when fighting Droṇa would have kept him away from Jayadratha all day.

Saying that he made a pratijñā not to fight Droṇa excuses Arjuna from the accusation that he is afraid to fight.

On the eleventh night of the war, sixty thousand warriors swear a joint vow (saṃśapa) to keep fighting Arjuna to the death. For the rest of the war, this group will be known as saṃśaptaka - united by their promise, conjured to each other.

The joint vow is their effort to help Droṇa fulfil his vow - to capture Yudhiṣṭhira - by keeping Arjuna engaged elsewhere. Although Arjuna has vowed not to leave Yudhiṣṭhira unprotected, on the twelfth day he asks for permission to go (Droṇaparvan 16.39-41), saying, "invited, I shall not turn back - this is my fixed rule" (āhūto na nivarteyam iti me vratam āhitam) and "truly I vow to you, consider them slain in battle" (satyaṃ te pratijānāmi hatān viddhi parān yudhi)! Of course, Arjuna's rule to fight whoever invites him is not absolute; he has vowed never to fight Droṇa.

Yudhiṣṭhira asks Arjuna to falsify Droṇa's vow to capture him, and after Arjuna has appointed Satyajit Pāñcālya to protect Yudhiṣṭhira, Yudhiṣṭhira permits Arjuna to fulfil his new vow to slay his saṃśaptaka enemies, thereby fulfilling their saṃśapa concerning him.

The saṃśapa is initiated by five brothers from Trigarta, who say that they're always humiliated by Arjuna, who "commits offenses upon us even when we haven't offended" (anāgaḥsv api c'āgaskṛd asmāsu). Already in Udyogaparvan, there were a couple of references to warriors of Trigarta being saṃśaptaka even during preparations for the war, without details of what they had jointly vowed and why.

Are the Trigartas innocent victims? Perhaps they're referring to Arjuna invading their kingdom and subjugating them so that Yudhiṣṭhira could perform Rājasūya. However, when they say that they can't sleep at night, burning with fury as they remember humiliations of many kinds (vinikārān pṛthag-vidhān), one wonders whether they had multiple encounters with Arjuna. Are these the same Trigartas who supported Jayadratha's abduction of Arjuna's wife? Do they blame Arjuna for the actions of his brothers helping Virāṭa to recover his cows from the Trigarta raid? Or, do they just feel humiliated after their battles with Arjuna in the present war?

The five Trigarta brothers, each of whose names begins with the word satya for truth, say "truly we proclaim to you, this will not be false" (satyaṃ te pratijānīmo n'aitan mithyā bhaviṣyati): "now, let the earth be without Arjuna, or without Trigartas then" (ady'āstv anArjunā bhūmir aTrigartā'tha vā punaḥ). Their ten thousand chariots head south on the twelfth morning of the war, inviting Arjuna to fight.

Then the Mālavas and Tuṇḍikeras with thirty thousand chariots, and Suśarman the Trigarta of Prasthala, with Mācellakas, Lalitthas, and Madrakas, with ten thousand chariots and swearing together with his brothers, and another ten thousand chariots from various countries, get together for saṃśapa. This joint vow is a ritual described in details that inform us about the moral obligations of a warrior who swore to fight to the death.

The warriors take fire (i.e., they start sacrificial āhavanīya fires from their household gārhapatya fires) and make offerings individually. They put on kuśa-garments (probably meaning silk, kauśeya, rather than woven kuśa-grass) and decorative armour, tie on body-protectors (tanu-trāṇa), dab themselves with clarified butter, and have their bowstrings (maurvī) as girdles (mekhalā), perhaps meaning that their bows are on their shoulders diagonally.

The men who are ready to lose their lives fighting (tanu-tyajaḥ) are those who have given a thousand or a hundred (cows) as sacrificial gifts (sahasra-śata-dakṣiṇāḥ), sacrificers (yajvānaḥ) who have sons (putriṇaḥ), who deserve good rebirths (lokyāḥ) and have fulfilled their obligations (kṛta-kṛtyāḥ). They have earned heavenly rebirths by service to brāhmaṇas (brahma-carya), education (śruti) etc., and sacrifices that delivered gifts (āpta-dakṣiṇa kratu), and they only want to go there quickly by fair battle. Now they satisfy brāhmaṇas by donating gold coins individually, cows, and garments. They discuss amongst themselves, and igniting their fires, they make the following vow of faith to their common cause (Droṇaparvan 16.29-36).

ye vai lokāś c'ānṛtānāṃ ye c'aiva brahma-ghātinām

pānapasya ca ye lokā guru-dāra-ratasya ca

brahma-sva-hāriṇaś c'aiva rāja-piṇḍ'āpahāriṇaḥ

śaraṇ'āgataṃ ca tyajato yācamānaṃ tathā ghnataḥ

agāra-dāhināṃ ye ca ye ca gāṃ nighnatām api

apacāriṇāṃ ca ye lokā ye ca brahma-dviṣām api

jāyāṃ ca ṛtu-kāle vai ye mohād abhigacchatām

śrāddha-saṃgatikānāṃ ca ye c'āpy ātm'āpahāriṇām

nyās'āpahāriṇāṃ ye ca śrutaṃ nāśayatāṃ ca ye

kopena yudhyamānānāṃ ye ca nīc'ānusāriṇām

nāstikānāṃ ca ye lokā ye'gni-horā-pitṛ-tyajām

tān āpnuyāmahe lokān ye ca pāpakṛtām api

yady ahatvā vayaṃ yuddhe nivartema Dhanaṃjayam

tena c'ābhyarditās trāsād bhavema hi parāṅ-mukhāḥ

yadi tv asukaraṃ loke karma kuryāma saṃyuge

iṣṭān puṇyakṛtāṃ lokān prāpnuyāma na saṃśayaḥ

Indeed, the rebirths of the deceitful, and even those of brāhmaṇa-killers, and the rebirths of a drunkard, and one elder's-wife-pleasured, and even of a brāhmaṇa-property-robber, of a royal-offering-stealer, and of a shelter-seeker-forsaker, also a pleader-killer, and those of house-burners, and also those of cow-slaughterers, and the rebirths of transgressors, and also those of brāhmaṇa-haters, and indeed those of men who distractedly approach a wife in her receptive period, and of śrāddha-visitors, and also those of self-misrepresenters, and those of deposit-stealers, and those of knowledge-losers, of spiteful fighters, and those of followers of ignobility, and the rebirths of non-believers, and those of men who forsake fire, seasons, and ancestors - may we attain those rebirths, and also those of wrongdoers if we return without slaying Dhanaṃjaya in battle, and out of fright when he agitates us hard, if we ever become backward-facers. But if we do in battle work that is not easy to do in the world, may we reach rebirths desired by those who do right, without a doubt.

The saṃśaptakas' list of offenders whose penalties they wish upon themselves if they break their promise has some overlap with the list of traitors and ingrates in Arjuna's vow two nights later. However, the saṃśaptakas' focus is on social responsibility and religious propriety, not treachery or ingratitude to a benefactor. Having lived nobly and charitably and protected their community, they want to face Arjuna as a challenge, not to punish him for any adharma. They don't say that anyone who runs away from battle, leaving the rest to die, will be a traitor to them; rather, by abandoning the common cause, he will lose the reward of his own life well lived.