Bhishma, the grandsire of the Kurus, roars like a lion and blows his conch to lift Duryodhana's spirits.

Advaita Vedānta

These commentators read the verse with close attention to its grammar and to the psychology of the scene. They note that the lion-roar and the conch-blast actually happen one after the other in time, yet the verse uses the present participle 'producing' (joy); this is explained as a present tense used for what is bound to happen, on the model of expressions like 'sacrificing while bewitching' or 'he cut the demons up from the roots'. The participle 'janayan' carries a causal sense, so the meaning is 'in order to produce joy'. On the human side they stress the contrast with Drona's silence: Bhishma, as eldest and as grandsire, both grasped the unspoken intent behind Duryodhana's flattering speech and refused to slight him as the teacher had, acting instead from affection while also meaning to terrify the foe from afar.

Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri

Viśiṣṭādvaita

This reading defends, at length, the traditional understanding that Duryodhana had genuinely fallen into despondency, which Bhishma now moves to relieve. It argues that 'tat' in 'tasya sanjanayan' should be taken as 'tasmat', 'for that reason', in a causal sense, so the distant-referent objection falls away; the enemy army is no longer remote from Duryodhana's view, since the surrounding verses use proximal demonstratives. It answers a string of objections: that despondency was unwarranted given defenders like Bhishma and Drona (yet their slaying was only conditionally possible, and Duryodhana, knowing the conditions, could doubt); that earlier 'do not fear' assurances had settled the matter (yet just as Arjuna, fully resolved to fight, was overcome at the sight of the foe, so Duryodhana, gazing on the tight formation and the equally resolute counter-army, could be suddenly seized by terror); and that the second day's mood should govern the first (yet a partial similarity need not be a full one, and war-prospects are unsteady). It reads Duryodhana's very confession of his army's insufficiency, at the outset, as the fear of one already touched by fate, foretelling his defeat. Grammatically it adds 'kritva' to show that 'simha-nadam vinadya' works like 'odanapakam pacati' (he cooks a cooking-of-rice), and treats the conches and kettledrums named later as standing in, by way of example, for the full array of instruments.

Vedānta Deśika

Bhedabheda

This commentator leaves open whom the joy is produced in, glossing 'in him' as either the assembled force as a whole or Duryodhana in particular. He explains 'lion's roar' as a roar like that of a lion, and notes a fine grammatical point that a particular act of roaring is here singled out, as its object, from roaring in general. He then carries the scene forward to the mass of instruments, the conches, kettledrums, tabors, drums, and trumpets, sounded all at once into a single tumultuous noise.

Śrī Bhāskara

Modern

One modern commentator draws meaning from the verse's word order: strictly the conch-blast is the cause and the joy is the effect, so the blast should have been named first; by reversing it and saying 'giving joy to Duryodhana, Bhishma blew the conch', Sanjaya signals that Bhishma's mere act of blowing was by itself enough to gladden the king, an influence underlined by the epithet 'pratapavan'. The same commentator reads 'kuru-vriddha' not as eldest in years (Bahlika was older) but as 'jnana-vriddha', foremost in knowledge of dharma and of God, and unpacks 'pratapavan' through Bhishma's life: his renunciation of crown and marriage, his mastery of weapons that defeated even the assembled kshatriyas and was not broken before his own teacher Parashurama, and Krishna's words that the sun of scriptural knowledge was setting as Bhishma lay dying. He also reads 'pitamaha' tenderly: where Drona saw only cunning in Duryodhana's speech and fell silent, the grandfather saw the childishness in it and, out of a grandfather's affection, answered with the conch. The other modern voice gives only the plain sense, that the grand-sire roared like a lion to engladden Duryodhana and blew his conch as a sign of readiness for battle.

Swami Ramsukhdas · Lokmanya Tilak