Shloka 17
आदि पर्व, अध्याय 104 — कर्णोत्पत्ति, दानधर्म, वैकर्तन-नामकरण
Karna’s Birth, Gift-Ethic, and the Name Vaikartana
प्रभां समुत्सृजेदर्को धूमकेतुस्तथोष्मताम् | त्यजेच्छब्दं तथा55काशं॑ सोम: शीतांशुतां त्यजेत्,'सूर्य प्रभा और अग्नि अपनी उष्णताको छोड़ दे, आकाश शब्दका और चन्द्रमा अपनी शीतलताका परित्याग कर दे
prabhāṃ samutsṛjed arko dhūmaketus tathā uṣmatām | tyajec chabdaṃ tathākāśaṃ somaḥ śītāṃśutāṃ tyajet ||
Vaiśampāyana sprach: „Die Sonne könnte ihren Glanz aufgeben; der Komet seine feurige Hitze; der Himmel den Klang; und der Mond seine kühlen, lindernden Strahlen.“
वैशम्पायन उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse uses ‘impossible’ cosmic reversals to stress unwavering certainty: just as the sun’s radiance or the moon’s cool beams are inseparable from their nature, so too the truth or duty being asserted in the surrounding passage is presented as unshakeable and beyond doubt.
Vaiśampāyana, as narrator, employs a heightened rhetorical formula—listing natural impossibilities—to intensify the force of a claim being made in the episode. It signals that the point at hand is meant to be accepted as firm and definitive, not tentative.