Shloka 5
Bhīmasena’s Kalinga Engagement and the Approach of Bhīṣma (भीमसेन-कालिङ्ग-संग्रामः)
रथेषाश्न रथेषाभि: कूबरा रथकूबरै: । संगतैः सहिता: केचित् परस्परजिघांसव:
ratheṣāśna ratheṣābhiḥ kūbarā rathakūbaraiḥ | saṃgataiḥ sahitāḥ kecit parasparajighāṃsavaḥ ||
Sañjaya said: The chariot-poles struck against chariot-poles, and the yokes and yoke-pins collided with those of other chariots. Some warriors, packed tightly together in the crush, moved with mutual intent to kill one another—an image of battle where proximity itself becomes a weapon and hostility overrides restraint.
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse highlights how war compresses human agency into mechanical collision and mutual hatred: when people become 'packed together' with the intent to kill, ethical discernment is eclipsed by enmity. It implicitly warns that unchecked hostility turns even tools (chariots) into instruments of indiscriminate destruction.
Sañjaya reports the intensity of the Kurukṣetra fighting: chariots are so densely engaged that their poles and yokes strike each other, and combatants in the crush press together, each seeking the other's death.