Shloka 72
अजिशीर्षे प्रातःसंध्यायां संग्रामवर्णनम् / Dawn-Transition Battle at Ajiśīrṣa
Chapter 161
“आज समरांगणमें सहस्रों योद्धा मेरे छोड़े हुए हजारों बाणसमूहोंको शलभोंकी पंक्तियोंके समान देखेंगे ।। अद्य बाणमयं वर्ष सृजतो मम धन्विन: । जीमूतस्येव घर्मान्ते द्रक्ष्यन्ति युधि सैनिका:,'जैसे वर्षाकालमें मेघ जलकी वर्षा करता है, उसी प्रकार धनुष हाथमें लेकर मेरे द्वारा की हुई बाणमयी वर्षाको आज युद्धस्थलमें समस्त सैनिक देखेंगे
sa jaya uv01ca |
ady01j samara01 a e sahasr01 o yoddh01 mama s5 7 a e sahasr01 o b01 a-sam6bh01n 5balabh01n01 p01 7kt2b iva drak 63yanti ||
adya b01 a-maya var 63a s5jato mama dhanvina |
j2bm6btasya iva gharm01nte drak 63yanti yudhi sainik01 ||
Sanjaya said: “Today, on the battlefield, thousands of warriors will behold the thousands of clusters of arrows released by me, like rows of moths. Today the soldiers in the fight will witness my shower made wholly of arrows, as though a rain-cloud, at the end of the hot season, were pouring down its rain.”
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse highlights how martial skill and the will to dominate can be expressed through vivid, almost natural imagery (a cloud’s rain), reminding readers that war often turns human agency into overwhelming, impersonal force. Ethically, it underscores the Mahabharata’s recurring tension: prowess and duty in battle can slide into pride and the normalization of mass violence.
Sanjaya narrates a moment of battlefield intensity, describing how an archer (speaking in the first person within the reported speech) will unleash such dense volleys of arrows that the soldiers will see it as an ‘arrow-rain,’ likened to a monsoon cloud after the heat season and to swarming moths in rows.