Shloka 45
ते क्षत्रिया: कुण्डलिनो युवान: परस्परं सायकविक्षताड्रा: । कुम्भेषु लीना: सुषुपुर्गजानां कुचेषु लग्ना इव कामिनीनाम्,वे कुण्डलधारी तरुण क्षत्रिय परस्पर सायकोंकी मारसे सम्पूर्ण अंगोंमें क्षत-विक्षत हो हाथियोंके कुम्भस्थलोंसे सटकर ऐसे सो रहे थे, मानो कामिनियोंके कुचोंका आलिंगन करके सोये हों
te kṣatriyāḥ kuṇḍalino yuvānaḥ parasparaṃ sāyakavikṣatādrāḥ | kumbheṣu līnāḥ suṣupur gajānāṃ kuceṣu lagnā iva kāminīnām ||
Sañjaya said: Those young kṣatriyas, wearing earrings, their bodies drenched and torn by one another’s arrows, lay asleep pressed against the temples of the elephants—clinging to them as though lovers resting in the embrace of women’s breasts.
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse underscores the fragility of youthful valor and ornamented pride in the face of war’s reality: even elite warriors are reduced to exhausted bodies. By likening their clinging to elephants’ temples to erotic embrace, it also hints at how attachment—whether to pleasure or to battle-glory—can bind beings to suffering and loss.
Sañjaya describes young, earring-wearing warriors who have been mutually wounded by arrows. Overcome by fatigue, they sleep leaning against the elephants’ temple-swellings, the poet intensifying the scene with a striking simile comparing their posture to lovers clinging to women’s breasts.