Shloka 4
भीष्मसेनासंनिवेशः — Bhīṣma’s Mobilization, Omens, and the Kaurava Array
ववाशिरे च दीप्तायां दिशि गोमायुवायसा: । लिप्समाना: शरीराणि मांसशोणितभोजना:
vavāśire ca dīptāyāṃ diśi gomāyuvāyasāḥ | lipsamānāḥ śarīrāṇi māṃsaśoṇitabhojanāḥ ||
Sañjaya said: In a blazing quarter of the sky, jackals and crows—feeders on flesh and blood—cried out with ominous voices, yearning for bodies. The sight foretold the moral darkness of the slaughter to come: as though nature itself proclaimed the dehumanizing cost of war, where death becomes prey and the battlefield a feast for scavengers.
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse underscores the ethical gravity of war: when violence is about to erupt, even the natural world appears to mirror the coming disorder. Scavengers longing for corpses functions as a moral warning—war reduces human bodies to prey and signals a collapse of auspicious order.
Sanjaya reports ominous portents: in a sky-direction that seems to blaze, jackals and crows cry out as they anticipate corpses. This is part of the larger catalogue of inauspicious signs foretelling massive bloodshed at Kurukshetra.