Shloka 37
गतासुयोधनिश्लेष्टशरीरशतवाहिनीम् । महाप्रतिभयां रौद्रां घोरां वैतरणीमिव
gatāsu yodhaniśleṣṭaśarīraśatavāhinīm | mahāpratibhayāṁ raudrāṁ ghorāṁ vaitaraṇīm iva
Sañjaya said: “It was like the Vaitaraṇī—terrible, fierce, and filled with great dread—its current bearing along hundreds of bodies, lifeless and clinging together on the battlefield.”
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse underscores the moral and existential cost of war: when violence overwhelms discernment, the battlefield becomes a hell-like passage, evoking the Vaitaraṇī. The imagery functions as an ethical warning—victory pursued through unchecked slaughter turns the world itself into a realm of dread.
Sañjaya reports to Dhṛtarāṣṭra a terrifying scene from the Kurukṣetra war: the field is so choked with corpses—bodies tangled together in combat—that it resembles a dreadful river-current carrying hundreds of lifeless bodies, compared to the fearsome Vaitaraṇī.