Transcript of Bhakti-Shastri class on this verse by Chaitanya Charan

Bg 1.5

dhṛṣṭaketuś cekitānaḥ
kāśirājaś ca vīryavān
purujit kuntibhojaś ca
śaibyaś ca nara-puṅgavaḥ

Word for word: 

dhṛṣṭaketuḥ — Dhṛṣṭaketu; cekitānaḥ — Cekitāna; kāśirājaḥ — Kāśirāja; ca — also; vīrya–vān — very powerful; purujit — Purujit; kuntibhojaḥ — Kuntibhoja; ca — and; śaibyaḥ — Śaibya; ca — and; nara–puṅgavaḥ — hero in human society.

Translation: 

There are also great heroic, powerful fighters like Dhṛṣṭaketu, Cekitāna, Kāśirāja, Purujit, Kuntibhoja and Śaibya.

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nara-puṅgavaḥ -> All these warriors are kings (and also formidable warriors)

Here Duryodhana is continuing the description of Pandava forces, and he describes Dhṛṣṭaketu, was the son of Shishupal, king of Chedis, now Shishupal was an anomaly in his dynasty, his dynasty was not demoniac. When he was born he was having some extra head and hands and those head and hand fell away when Krishna saw him, and his mother was knowing the prophesy that the person by seeing whom his head and hand will fall away that person would eventually kill Shishupal so his mother ask Krishna for benediction that please don’t kill him even if he offends you. Krishna said I won’t kill him even if he offend me hundred times, more than that I will not tolerate so Shisupal went on rampage on insults in the Rajashuya Yajna assembly when Krishna was chosen for recipient of Agra Puja, for being deemed the most worshipable person in that assembly and when he went on that rampage he lost the count and spoke more than hundred imprecations then Krishna used the Sudarshana Chakra to stop his offenses by beheading him by doing bloodless head surgery, not a drop of blood fell and that is how Yajna was not defied its sanctity was not lost it would have happend if a drop of blood would have fallen over there. So is it that Sri Krishna wanted to kill Shishupal so this insult has happened, the point is not the insult but the mentality, the demonic nature of the person which is manifested through his speech, so Krishna saw all that and despite giving him many opportunity to reform to check himself or to at lest keep him within civilized strain. Sishupal did not accept any of those so Sri Krishna decided to purify the sinful mentality by separating him from his sinful body. Now Shisupal has many sons and his eldest son Dhristaketu was subsequently enthroned as king, it may see a little odd that Dhristaketu son of Shisupal is fighting on the side of Pandavas but actaully it is said that Shisupal was an out of the character person within that dynasty, the dynasty was all virtuous.  And even Shisupal prior to the Rajasuya Yajna when the Pandavas went in different direction to conquer over world so that all emperor of world would come and offer tributes to Yudhisthir at that time Shishupal welcomes the Pandavas army and he said that I respect Yudhishthira as virtuous ruler and I will come and I will offer tribute there is no need to fight. So Shishupal problem or enviousness was towards Krishna not Pandavas. So his enviouness was fueled when Krishna was selected for Agrapuja, so after Shishupal was killed his son Dhristaketu was grief struck when his father was killed like that but he knew that it was duty of any self-respecting man not let so many insults in a public assembly go on and challenge and it was Shishupal who has invited death upon himself and Krishna has tolerated it hughly and kept the word He has given to his mother. So Dhristaketu did not bring any resentment towards Pandavas although it was Pandavas Rajasuya Yajna where his father has been killed and he sided with Pandavas. And Dhristaketu was acutally one of the formidable commanders. (Dhristaketu should not be confused with Dhritadumna, he was mentioned in the 3rd verse as Durpad Putrena) Dhristaketu fought gallantly with Pandavas, and he was killed by Drona in extremely furiously battle Slaying Dhristaketu was one of the Heroic achievements of Drona, as he was not an easy opponent to slay.

Then Chaiketana, is son of Dhristaketu  . Srila Prabhupada has mentioned that both Krishna and Arjuna was of same age and both were more than 100 years of age so even grandsons were grown up, e.g. Lakshmana who was son of Duryodhana he was fighting and his sons were also fighting they were referred to Pautran. So Chaiketana was son of Dhristaketu and he was also formidable warrior, Chaiketana was one of the commander of Pandavas army, commander means there were 7 aukshoheni and he was commander of one of the aukshonis so in older genration Drupad and Virat were commander of one-one aukshohini then Bhima was the commander of one aukshohini that is Pandavas generation and in that generation Dhristadumna was commander of one division and also he was commander of overall army. Shikandi who is brother of Dhritadumna He was also commander of one division then Satyaki was also commander he was called Vivadhana.

Chakitana was killed by Duryodhana after Krana was killed on 17th day next day 18th day when Duryodhana came he saw his army was devastated he saw Salya falling he saw Sakunni falling he saw his army was wiped out. Duryodhana has killed very few warriors and Chiketana was one of them, so both father and son gave up their life for Pandavas on the warfield, relationship between Pandavas and Chedi’s were cordial Dhristaketu also has a sister named Karenumati who was married to Nakula.

kāśirājaś ca vīryavān

vīryavān is pocessor of Virya, strength, kāśirāja. Now sometime some kingdoms were more famous then the specific kings who were there, and just being the king of that kingdon was itself considered famous so Kashi is the sacred place and to be considered as king of that place is also considered fortune, of the kingdom surrounding that place also so the king is sometime known by the personal name or sometimes by the common name, common name is the name from where belongs to or the area He is ruling So Kashiraj is not described much further in the Mahabharat, but the fact is if a person is king of influential kingdom like Kashi is itself significant and that also is a matter of concern for Duryodhana. There was a Kshiram who is mentioned to Bhagvatam who was inimical to Balram Ji and his mouth was smashed by Balamram Ji, so here is a Kshiraj who is fighting on the side of Pandavas.

purujit kuntibhojaś ca

purujit, again not much is described for purujit by the commentators, but the name refers puru means kingdom + jit, so the person who has referred conquered the kingdom. 

Kuntibhojaś, we know the word Kunti as the name of mother of three Pandavas, of course she is considered mother of all Pandavas because she took care of all of them after Madhree who is mother of Nakul and Shahdev, passed away in the childhood, we identify the word Kunti with Queen Kunti but Kunti was also a kingdom which was ruled by Bhoja dynasty, so the Bhoja who ruled the kingdom Kunti is celebrated as KuntiBhoja, so names in Vedic culture were fluid so one person often has many names and one particular name will become sometimes prominent so Kunti Bhoja was the ruler of the kingdom Kunti and he was a close friend of Sursen, who was the father of Vashudev who was father of Sri Krishna, now KuntiBhoj despite having a flourishing kingdom could not get a child so Sursen out of affection of his friend gave him his own daughter now this daughter has the birth name Prutha but when she came to the kingdom of KuntiBhoj on the request of her father she has accepted Kunti Bhoj as her father for all practical purposes but when someone will call her Prutha this name was given by her birth father Vadudev so that will remind her and others about her actual father and Kunti was sensitive that when someone call her by that names she says let me put aside this name which reminds about the actula father and adopt the name which connects me to you KuntiBhoj. Because you are taking care of me you are my father now. So she came to known as Kunti which reinforce her connection to Kunti Bhoja. So Kunti Bhoj was a formidable warrior who fought on the side of Pandavas and he was the father of Kunti. Similarly when we take initiation our new name given the importance of our connection with our spiritual master. Giving identity to a person by giving him name although we are soul but in this world we are not known as soul we are known through our bodies so giving name shows the act of intimacy between two people so that is the act which parents do for the children and similarly that is the act spiritual master does with the disciples. Because Pritha has a name so she need not have to do that but she did that to make the bound with her father more intimate kuntibhojaś ca.

śaibyaś ca nara-puṅgavaḥ

śaibya was also a king the śaibya was quite common name in fact one of queen of Krishna was Mitra Vinda and her name was also Saibya. Saibya refers to descendants of Shibi. Shibi was the famous king who sacrificed for others and is celebrated in Bhagvatam also. So Saibya was also a commander who was fighting on the side of the Pandavas. Some times some names are not geneder specific and those can be used by males and females. 

nara-puṅgavaḥ

O they are all leaders among man, now Pungavah can be most eminent among that is the meaning normally translated but the literal translation of Pungavah is bull, O bull among man. In todays culture especially western culture bull is not considered to be very respectable, in fact when people are foul about something and they use Bull***. But in vedic culture cows and bulls are same family and as cow are seen with reverential attitude similalry bulls are also considered with very respected attitude if fact bulls are decorated and celebrated in traditional culture. And just as Lion, tigers, elephants is considered to be strongest of animals among the wild animal so among the domestic animals bull is celebrated as extremely strong. In facts bulls is also formidable animals bull fights were often quite popular and bull riders rodios is quite  dengerous sports because bulls can run so fast and they have horns and they can throw off riders so bull riding is considers quite a difficult and dangerous sports, because bulls has so much strength, so for the king to be compared to bull is not minimizing in any way as it can be seen in the modern mind, when we call bull among man it means best among man this is the adjective which is used nara-puṅgavaḥ. They are all eminent leaders.

So Duryodhana in this way speaks about formidable warriors on the side of the Pandavas so as to alert Drona and alert his forces to fight consciously knowing the strength of their opponents.

End of transcription.