Shloka 43
कर्णपर्व — पञ्चदशोऽध्यायः | Karṇa Parva, Chapter 15: Pāṇḍya’s Advance and Aśvatthāmā’s Counterstroke
भल्ल्लैश्छिन्ना: करा: पेतु: करिणां मदवर्षिणाम् । यथा वने परशुभिनिकित्ता: सुमहाद्रुमा:
bhallaiś chinnāḥ karāḥ petuḥ kariṇāṃ madavarṣiṇām | yathā vane paraśubhir nikṛttāḥ sumahādrumāḥ ||
Sañjaya said: The trunks of the rut-maddened elephants, streaming ichor, were severed by sharp bhalla-arrows and fell to the ground. As great trees in a forest, hewn down by axes, crash down, so too those mighty trunks were cut again and again and dropped upon the earth.
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse underscores the fragility of embodied power: even the mightiest war-elephants fall when struck by skilled weaponry. It implicitly warns that pride in strength and martial grandeur is transient, and that war reduces living beings to objects of destruction.
Sañjaya describes a fierce moment in the battle where bhalla-arrows sever the trunks/fore-limbs of ichor-streaming elephants, causing them to collapse. He heightens the scene with a simile: like huge trees felled by axes in a forest.