Shloka 36
अलंबलवधः (Alaṃbala-vadhaḥ) / The Slaying of Alaṃbala and the Advance toward Karṇa
अहं ज्ञास्यामि कौन्तेय कालमस्य दुरात्मन: । यत्रैनं विशिखैस्ती3क्ष्ग: पातयिष्यसि भूतले,“कुन्तीकुमार! मैं उस दुरात्माका अन्तकाल जानता हूँ, जब कि तुम अपने तीखे बाणोंद्वारा उसे पृथ्वीपर मार गिराओगे”
ahaṁ jñāsyāmi kaunteya kālam asya durātmanaḥ | yatra enaṁ viśikhaiḥ tīkṣṇaiḥ pātayiṣyasi bhūtale ||
Sañjaya said: “O son of Kuntī, I know the destined hour of this wicked man’s end—the moment when you will strike him down upon the earth with your sharp arrows.”
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse emphasizes kāla (the appointed time) as the moral and narrative mechanism by which adharma reaches its end: the ‘wicked one’ is not merely killed, but meets a foreseen consequence through the rightful agency of a dharma-aligned warrior.
Sañjaya addresses Arjuna (Kaunteya), declaring certainty about the moment when Arjuna will bring down an unnamed ‘wicked man’ with sharp arrows, foreshadowing an imminent battlefield death and reinforcing the inevitability of the outcome.