Sishupala said: -
1. Old and infamous wretch of your race, are you not ashamed to frighten all these kings by these false terrors?
2. You are the foremost of the Purus-living as you do in the third state (celibacy), it is but fit that you should give such advice, which is so void of morality.
3. O Bhisma, when you are their leader the Purus are like a boat tied to a boat, or like a blind man following a blind man.
4. You have once again given pains to our hearts by reciting the deeds of this (Krishna), such as his killing Putana and others.
5. O Bhisma, arrogant and fool as you are, and also desirous of praising Krishna, why does not your tongue split into a hundred parts?
6. O Bhisma, how do you, superior as you are in knowledge, desire to praise the cowherd (Krishna) whose evil repute is told even by men with childish intelligence.
7. O Bhisma, if he (Krishna) has killed a vulture in his childhood, what is there to praise in that feat? What is there also in his killing of Ashwa and Vrishabha, both of whom were ignorant of the science of war?
8. O Bhisma, what is there wonderful if this (Krishna) threw down by a kick an inanimate piece of wood, namely a car?
9. O Bhisma, in my opinion there was nothing remarkable in this one’s holding for a week the Govardhana hill which is like an anthill.
10. O Bhisma, “while sporting on the hills, this one ate a large quantity of food,” hearing these words of yours, many have been much astonished.
11. O (Bhisma) learned in the precepts of religion, what could be more wonderful than this one’s killing Kansa, by whose food he became fattened and strong.
12. O Bhisma, O wretch of the Puru race, you are ignorant of the precepts of religion. You have not heard from the pious men what I would now tell you.
13-14. The pious men always instruct good men not to use weapons against women, kine, Brahmanas and the men whose food has been partaken, and also those whose shelter has been enjoyed. O Bhisma, it appears all this teaching has been thrown away on you.
15. O wretch of the Kuru race, wishing to praise Keshava (Krishna), you describe him before me as great and superior in knowledge and age, as if I know nothing.
16. O Bhisma, if at your word one who has killed women and kine be worshipped, what then is to become of this teaching? O Bhisma, how can he deserve praise who is such?
17. “This one is the foremost of all wise men,” and “This one is the lord of the universe,” hearing these words of yours, Janardana (Krishna) believes that they are all true. But they are surely all false.
18. The verses that a chaunter chaunts, though he chants them often, would produce no impression on him. every creature acts according to his own disposition like the bird Bhulinga.
19-20. There is not the least doubt that your disposition is very mean. It appears the Pandavas also who consider Krishna as deserving of worship and who have you for their leader are of sinful dispositions. Though you possess the knowledge of virtue, yet you have fallen from the path of virtue.
21. O Bhisma, who will so act as you have from the motives of virtue, knowing himself to be virtuous and superior in knowledge?
22-23. O Bhisma, if you know Dharma, if your mind is guided by wisdom, why was that virtuous maiden Amba, who desired to have another for her husband, was forcibly carried away by you? Your brother Vichitravirya who followed the path of the pious men.
24. Knowing her state of mind, did not marry her, though she was brought by you. Proud as you are of your virtue, in your very sight sons were begotten by another on the widow of your brother according to the ways of the pious.
25. O Bhisma, where is your virtue? your Brahmacharya is in vain. Your celibacy is no doubt the result of your ignorance or impotence.
26. O (Bhisma), learned in Dharma, I do not see your prosperity. You who thus preach morality does not seem to have ever waited upon the old.
27. Worship, gift, study, large-Dakshina giving sacrifices, these all are not equal to one sixteenth part of that merit which is obtained by the possession of a son.
28. O Bhisma, the merit that is obtained by observing many vows and fasts surely goes all in vain if one is childless.
29. You are childless, you are old, you are an expounder of false morality. Like the swan in the story, you shall now be killed by your own relatives.
30. O Bhisma, the learned men have said this (story) of old. I shall presently narrate it in full in your hearing.
31. In the days of yore there lived an old swan on the coast of the sea. He always spoke of morality and used to instruct all the birds, but his conduct was otherwise.
32. O Bhisma, “Practice virtue and forego sin”, these were the words that the truthful (birds) heard him say.
33. O Bhisma, it has been heard by us that oviparous creatures, (all) dwelling in the sea, brought him food for the sake of virtue.
34. O Bhisma, all those birds left their eggs with him, ranged and dived in the waters of the sea. But that sinful wretch ate them (eggs) all.
35. That swan, always attentive to his own purpose, ate the eggs foolishly trusted to him. Sometime after seeing the eggs decreased in number, another greatly intelligent bird suspected him, and one day he saw him (eat those eggs).
36. Having witnessed the sinful act of the swan, that bird spoke of it to all the other birds in great sorrow.
37. O excellent Puru, then all those birds, witnessing with their own eyes the act of the (old), swan, came to him, and they then killed that wretch of false conduct.
38. O Bhisma, your conduct is like that of the old swan. These kings might kill you in anger as the birds killed the old swan.
39. O Bhisma, the Purana-knowing men mention a proverb as regard this occurrence. O descendant of Bharata, I shall repeat it to you in detail.
40. It is this “O bird, though your heart is affected, yet you preach. But your this sinful act of eating the eggs transgresses of your speeches”.
Thus ends the forty-first chapter, the words of sishupala, in sishupala Badha of the Sabha Parva.