Shishupala insults Bhishma and criticizes Krishna's deeds

Bhishma had been speaking, and his words were all in praise of Krishna — Keshava, the cowherd prince, the slayer of demons, the one who held up a mountain. To Shishupala, king of Chedi, each word was an insult. He stood and addressed the assembly, his anger sharpening every syllable. He began with Bhishma himself. “You are old,” Shishupala said, “and you defile your lineage. You try to frighten all these kings with your threats. Are you not ashamed?” He twisted the knife: since Bhishma lived in the third state — neither fully a householder nor a renunciant — it was only natural he would offer advice that ran counter to dharma. With Bhishma leading, the Kouravas were like a blind man following the blind. Then he turned to the praise. “You have once again injured our minds by specially recounting this one’s deeds.” He took each of Krishna’s legendary childhood acts and stripped them of wonder. Killing the demoness Putana? What was extraordinary about killing a vulture? Kicking down a wooden cart? It was inanimate. Holding up Govardhana mountain for a week? “It was nothing but an anthill.” Eating great quantities of food on a mountain top? That only inspired more astonishment — at the absurdity of the praise. He invoked dharma with a prosecutor’s precision. Righteous ones taught that one should never use weapons against women, cattle, brahmanas, those whose food has been partaken, and those who seek refuge. “It seems all this has been wasted on you.” Krishna, he pointed out, was a killer of a woman — Putana — and, by implication, a killer of cattle through his pastoral life. How did such a man deserve praise? “Even if a raconteur sings praises many times,” Shishupala said, “those praises aren’t praise for the raconteur.” Every being acts according to its nature — bhulingas and vultures, each following its own. “There is no doubt that your nature is vile.” Then he aimed at Bhishma’s most intimate wounds. “Why did you abduct the maiden Amba?” She had desired someone else. His brother Vichitravirya, following the path of the righteous, had refused to accept her. “He is the one on whose wives others had to beget children.” In Bhishma’s sight, others had fathered offspring for the dynasty. “That is not the path of the righteous. O Bhishma! Where is your dharma?” He dismissed Bhishma’s famed vow of lifelong celibacy — brahmacharya. “Your brahmacharya is in vain. There is no doubt that you uphold it as a result of delusion or impotency.” He cited the ancient wisdom: offerings, alms, study, and sacrifices were not worth a sixteenth of what was obtained through a son. Bhishma had no offspring. He was old. He uttered false words in the name of dharma. “Like the swan in the story,” Shishupala concluded, “you will now be killed by your own relatives.”