सरहस्यो धनुर्वेदः सविसर्गोपसंयमः ।
अस्त्रग्रामश्च भवता शिक्षितो यदनुग्रहात् ॥४४॥

sarahasyo dhanur-vedaḥ
savisargopasaá¹yamaḥ
astra-grÄmaÅ› ca bhavatÄ
Å›iká¹£ito yad-anugrahÄt

1 times this text was mentioned in purports to other texts: LSB(1)

 sa-rahasyaḥ - confidential; dhanuḥ-vedaḥ - knowledge in the art of manipulating bows and arrows; sa-visarga - releasing; upasaá¹yamaḥ - controlling; astra - weapons; grÄmaḥ - all kinds of; ca - and; bhavatÄ - by yourself; Å›iká¹£itaḥ - learned; yat - by whose; anugrahÄt - mercy of.


Text

It was by DroṇÄcÄrya’s mercy that you learned the military art of throwing arrows and the confidential art of controlling weapons.

Purport

Dhanur-veda, or military science, was taught by DroṇÄcÄrya with all its confidential secrets of throwing and controlling by Vedic hymns. Gross military science is dependent on material weapons, but finer than that is the art of throwing the arrows saturated with Vedic hymns, which act more effectively than gross material weapons like machine guns or atomic bombs. The control is by Vedic mantras, or the transcendental science of sound. It is said in the RÄmÄyaṇa that MahÄrÄja DaÅ›aratha, the father of Lord ÅšrÄ« RÄma, used to control arrows by sound only. He could pierce his target with his arrow by only hearing the sound, without seeing the object. So this is a finer military science than that of the gross material military weapons used nowadays. Arjuna was taught all this, and therefore DraupadÄ« wished that Arjuna feel obliged to Ä€cÄrya Droṇa for all these benefits. And in the absence of DroṇÄcÄrya, his son was his representative. That was the opinion of the good lady DraupadÄ«. It may be argued why DroṇÄcÄrya, a rigid brÄhmaṇa, should be a teacher in military science. But the reply is that a brÄhmaṇa should become a teacher, regardless of what his department of knowledge is. A learned brÄhmaṇa should become a teacher, a priest and a recipient of charity. A bona fide brÄhmaṇa is authorized to accept such professions.