Shloka 25
Droṇa-parva Adhyāya 45: Saubhadra–Lakṣmaṇa-saṃyoga and Kaurava Counter-Encirclement
प्राणा: प्राणभृतां संख्ये प्रेषितानि शितै: शरै: । राजन प्रापुरमुं लोक॑ शरीराण्यवनिं ययु:,राजन! उस युद्धस्थलमें उसके पैने बाणोंसे प्रेरित हुए प्राणधारियोंके शरीर तो पृथ्वीपर गिर पड़े, परंतु प्राण परलोकमें जा पहुँचे
sañjaya uvāca |
prāṇāḥ prāṇabhṛtāṃ saṅkhye preṣitāni śitaiḥ śaraiḥ |
rājan prāpur amuṃ lokaṃ śarīrāṇy avanīṃ yayuḥ ||
Sañjaya said: O King, in that battle the life-breaths of living warriors—driven forth by his keen arrows—reached the other world, while their bodies fell upon the earth. Thus the scene reveals the grim separation of soul and body that war brings: the mortal frame collapses here, yet the vital principle departs onward, reminding the listener of the ethical weight of violence and the inevitability of death amid righteous and unrighteous conflict alike.
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse underscores the separation between the perishable body (śarīra) and the departing life-breath (prāṇa) at death, highlighting the inevitability of mortality and the grave ethical burden carried by acts of killing in war.
Sañjaya reports to the king that, struck by keen arrows in the battlefield, warriors’ bodies fell to the ground while their lives departed to the other world—an image of the battlefield’s lethal finality.