Shloka 14
Adhyaya 60: Self-Assertion, Daiva, and the Rhetoric of Inevitability (उद्योग पर्व)
स्तम्भितास्वप्सु गच्छन्ति मया रथपदातय: । देवासुराणां भावानामहमेकः: प्रवर्तिता,मेरे द्वारा स्तम्भित किये हुए जलके ऊपर रथ और पैदल सेनाएँ चल सकती हैं। एकमात्र मैं ही दैव तथा आसुर शक्तियोंको प्रकट करनेमें समर्थ हूँ
stambhitāsv apsu gacchanti mayā rathapadātayaḥ | devāsurāṇāṃ bhāvānām aham ekaḥ pravartitā ||
Vaiśaṃpāyana sprach: „Über Wasser, das ich festgehalten und zur Ruhe gebracht habe, können Wagen und Fußsoldaten ziehen. Ich allein vermag die Kräfte und Wesensarten der Götter und der Asuras in Bewegung zu setzen und offenbar werden zu lassen.“
वैशम्पायन उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse underscores the idea that extraordinary outcomes in the epic—such as armies moving where they normally could not—depend on a higher, singular agency that can restrain nature and activate opposing cosmic forces (deva and asura). It frames power as something that can be ‘set in motion’ by an initiator, reminding the listener that events in war are not only human strategy but also shaped by supra-human causation.
The speaker reports a claim of miraculous capability: waters can be made firm so that chariots and infantry may traverse them, and the same agent can bring forth or energize the divine and demonic modes of power. In context, it functions as a declaration of potency meant to explain or justify extraordinary movement and the unfolding of great forces around the impending conflict.