Shloka 20
हतो वैकर्तनो राजन सूतपुत्रो महारथ: । दिष्टया जयसि राजेन्द्र दिष्टया वर्धसि भारत,“राजन! महारथी सूतपुत्र वैकर्तन कर्ण मारा गया, राजेन्द्र! सौभाग्यसे आप विजयी हो रहे हैं। भारत! आपकी वृद्धि हो रही है, यह परम सौभाग्यकी बात है
hato vaikartano rājan sūtaputro mahārathaḥ | diṣṭyā jayasi rājendra diṣṭyā vardhasi bhārata ||
Sañjaya sprach: „O König, Vaikartana Karṇa – der große Wagenkämpfer, der Sohn eines Sūta (Wagenlenkers) – ist erschlagen worden. Durch glückliche Fügung setzt du dich durch, o Herr der Könige; durch glückliche Fügung wachsen Macht und Wohlstand bei dir, o Bhārata.“
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse highlights the Mahābhārata’s recurring tension between human agency and destiny: Sañjaya frames a decisive wartime event (Karṇa’s death) as ‘diṣṭyā’—a turn of fortune. Ethically, it also underscores how victory in war is often narrated as prosperity and success for a king, even when it is built upon immense loss, inviting reflection on the moral cost of triumph.
Sañjaya informs King Dhṛtarāṣṭra that Karṇa—Duryodhana’s chief support and a foremost warrior—has been killed. He then addresses Dhṛtarāṣṭra with conventional courtly reassurance, saying that by good fortune the king is ‘winning’ and ‘increasing,’ i.e., that the Kaurava cause appears to be advancing at this moment in the report.