Shloka 23
धृष्टद्युम्नस्य द्रोणरथारोহণं सात्यकेः प्रतिरक्षणं च | Dhrishtadyumna Boards Droṇa’s Chariot; Sātyaki’s Counter-Protection
लोहिताक्ष॑ महाबाहुं जात॑ सिंहमिवाद्रिषु । उपेन्द्रसदृशं ब्रूत कथमायोधने हत:,'पर्वतोंमें उत्पन्न हुए सिंहके समान लाल नेत्रोंवाले, श्रीकृष्णतुल्य पराक्रमी महाबाहु अभिमन्युके विषयमें आपलोग बतावें। वह युद्धमें किस प्रकार मारा गया?
sañjaya uvāca |
lohitākṣaṁ mahābāhuṁ jātaṁ siṁham ivādriṣu |
upendrasadṛśaṁ brūta katham āyodhane hataḥ ||
Sanjaya said: “Tell me how Abhimanyu—red-eyed, mighty-armed, and valiant like Upendra (Vishnu), like a lion born among the mountains—was slain in the battle. By what manner did such a hero meet his end?”
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse frames Abhimanyu’s fall as a moral and emotional problem: when a warrior of exceptional valor is slain, the listener seeks not only the fact of death but the manner—implying scrutiny of whether the killing aligned with the ethics of battle (dharma-yuddha) and how fate and human choices converge in war.
Sanjaya, narrating events of the Kurukṣetra war, asks for an account of how Abhimanyu—praised as lion-like and comparable in prowess to Upendra—was killed in the fighting, setting up the detailed description of the circumstances of his death.