Shloka 44
Adhyāya 65: Dawn Assembly, Makara–Śyena Vyūhas, and Commander Engagements
उनके शिरों, बाजूबन्दविभूषित भुजाओं और अंकुशोंसहित हाथोंके गिरनेसे ऐसा जान पड़ता था, मानो आकाशसे ओले और पत्थरोंकी वर्षा हो रही हो ।।
sañjaya uvāca |
teṣāṃ śirobāhubandha-vibhūṣita-bhujānām aṅkuśa-sahitānāṃ hastānāṃ nipātāt tathā pratibhāti sma yathā nabhaso hailāśmavarṣaḥ syāt ||
hatottamāṅgāḥ skandheṣu gajānāṃ gajayodhinaḥ |
adṛśyantācalāgreṣu drumā bhagnaśikhā iva ||
قال سنجيا: حين تساقطت رؤوسُ المحاربين وأذرعُهم—وقد زُيّنت بأساور العضد—بل وحتى مِهاميزُ الفيلة (الأنكوشا) التي كانت في أيديهم، بدا المشهد كأنّ البَرَدَ والحجارة تمطر من السماء. وكان مقاتلو الفيلة، وإن قُطِعت رؤوسُهم، يُرَون ما يزالون مسنودين على أكتاف فيلتهم—كأشجارٍ على قمم الجبال قد انكسرت رؤوسُها.
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse highlights the stark impermanence of bodily power and martial glory: ornaments, weapons, and even the body itself are reduced to falling fragments in war. It implicitly warns that violence strips away human dignity and that worldly distinctions collapse under the force of death and fate.
Sañjaya describes a fierce battlefield moment where severed heads, arms with armlets, and hands holding elephant-goads fall in such numbers that it resembles a shower of hailstones. He then depicts elephant-mounted fighters whose heads have been cut off yet whose torsos remain braced on the elephants’ shoulders, appearing like top-broken trees standing on mountain peaks.