Shloka 12

कर्णेन व्यूहविधानम् — Karṇa’s Battle Formation and the Pāṇḍava Counter-Plan

Adhyāya 31

Devanagari script

कृत्वा नसुकरं कर्म गतौ स्वर्गमितोडनघ । तथान्ये पुरुषव्याप्रा: परैर्विनिहता युधि,वे दोनों महाधनुर्धर योद्धा बूढ़े हो गये थे, इसलिये युद्धमें शत्रुओंद्वारा छलपूर्वक मारे गये। अनघ! वे दुष्कर कर्म करके यहाँसे स्वर्गलोकमें चले गये। इसी प्रकार दूसरे पुरुषसिंह वीर भी युद्धमें शत्रुओंद्वारा मारे गये हैं

Transliteration

kṛtvā na sukaraṃ karma gatau svargam ito ’naghāḥ | tathānye puruṣavyāghrāḥ parair vinihatā yudhi ||

Translation

Sañjaya said: “Having accomplished deeds that are not easy to perform, those blameless heroes have departed from here to heaven. In the same way, other tiger-like men too have been struck down in battle by their foes—war consuming even the mighty, and death coming through the stratagems of opponents as the aged bowmen met their end.”

Word by Word

• {'kṛtvā': 'having done, having accomplished', 'na sukaraṃ': 'not easy to do

• difficult', 'karma': 'deed, act (especially a weighty or valorous action)', 'gatau': 'gone, departed (dual/plural sense in context)', 'svargam': 'to heaven

• the heavenly world', 'itaḥ': 'from here', 'anaghāḥ': 'blameless, faultless (vocative/plural sense)', 'tathā': 'thus, likewise', 'anye': 'others', 'puruṣavyāghrāḥ': 'tigers among men

• great heroes', 'paraiḥ': 'by others

• by enemies', 'vinihatāḥ': 'slain, struck down', 'yudhi': 'in battle'}

Speaker

संजय उवाच

Characters & Entities

• Sañjaya
• Svarga (heaven)

Educational Q&A

What is the core teaching?

The verse frames battlefield death within a moral-ritual horizon: heroic, arduous action (duskara karma) can lead to svarga, yet war also involves opponents’ stratagems and the vulnerability of even great warriors—highlighting both the ideal of valor and the grim reality of conflict.

What is happening in the narrative?

Sañjaya reports to Dhṛtarāṣṭra that certain blameless heroes, after performing difficult feats, have died and gone to heaven; he generalizes that many other great warriors too have been killed in the fighting by their enemies.