Shloka 13

बभ्रुवाहन-धनंजययोः संग्रामः

Babhruvāhana and Dhanaṃjaya’s engagement at Maṇipūra

Devanagari script

शतं शतसहस््राणि शराणां नतपर्वणाम्‌

Transliteration

śataṃ śata-sahasrāṇi śarāṇāṃ nata-parvaṇām

Translation

قال فايشَمبايانا: «مئاتٌ بعد مئاتٍ من آلاف السهام—كلُّ سهمٍ ذو عُقَدٍ منحنية—(كانت حاضرة/أُطلقت).»

Word by Word

• शतम्: a hundred
• शतम्: Karma
• Type: Noun
• Root: शत
• Form: Neuter, Nominative/Accusative, Singular

• शतसहस्राणि: hundreds of thousands
• शतसहस्राणि: Karma
• Type: Noun
• Root: शतसहस्र
• Form: Neuter, Nominative/Accusative, Plural

• शराणाम्: of arrows
• शराणाम्: Adhikarana
• Type: Noun
• Root: शर
• Form: Masculine, Genitive, Plural

• नतपर्वणाम्: having bent joints/knots (i.e., barbed/with curved nodes)
• नतपर्वणाम्: Adhikarana
• Type: Adjective
• Root: नतपर्वन्
• Form: Masculine, Genitive, Plural

Speaker

वैशम्पायन उवाच

Characters & Entities

• Vaiśampāyana
• arrows (śarāḥ)

Educational Q&A

What is the core teaching?

By stressing an almost unimaginable quantity of weaponry, the verse implicitly points to the ethical gravity of warfare: when violence becomes vast and impersonal, responsibility and restraint (dharma) become even more crucial.

What is happening in the narrative?

The narrator describes an enormous mass of arrows—characterized as ‘bent-jointed’—to convey the intensity and magnitude of the martial scene being recounted in the Ashvamedhika Parva.