72.46Had been sucked into the sea: Arjuna is said to cry out bhinna/poto vanig yatha, literally “like a merchant with a broken boat.” Though in English it may seem odd to compare a semidivine warrior to a figure as modest and unassuming as a merchant, the analogy is indeed just as awkward in Sanskrit. Its peculiarity has a dissonance that renders Arjuna’s emotion suddenly very human and “unheroic.”

72.70The dance of war: Among the many words for “war” that Krishna uses in this passage, one in particular contains in its etymology a fascinating double meaning that epitomises many of the epic’s curious ambiguities: ranah translates as both “war” and “joy.” Perhaps this double meaning results from an etymological fusion between the three verbs √ran, “to enjoy,” √ran “to move about” and √ran “to clatter” or “ring.”

75.27 Splinter and lotus: Krishna here referes to the arum array as made up of two parts. See the description of Drona’s formation at note to 87.22.

76.8 The dice in this contest: the term dyutam is a polyvalent term that contains within it several of many contradictions of the “Maha·bharata”: it translates as “game” or “gambling” but also “battle” and “spoils” or “prize.” To have the dyutam baddham would be to have the game “wrapped up,” or even to load the dice. See the Introduction, pp. xx–xxi.

77.12 O daughter of the rams: Krishna and his sister and the rest of their tribe are known as the Vrishnis, after their patriarch, the youngest of the four sons of Bhima Satvata, a ruler of the Yadava kingdom in northwest India. Vrishni literally translates as “Ram.”

79.4 Nightpiece: Arjuna and Krishna have just performed a nocturnal rite together. A naisam means a “night-thing:” I take it to refer to some remnant of the ritual become a kind of charm that Arjuna passes at the rite’s conclusion to his “priest,” in place of a daksina. See note to 55.38.