Shloka 26
कर्णेन व्यूहविधानम् — Karṇa’s Battle Formation and the Pāṇḍava Counter-Plan
Adhyāya 31
व | हे हि |: ; धप ७ ् * | सूर्यारुणौ यथा दृष्टवा तमो नश्यति मारिष । तथा नश्यन्तु कौन्तेया: सपठ्चाला: ससूंजया:
sūryāruṇau yathā dṛṣṭvā tamo naśyati māriṣa | tathā naśyantu kaunteyāḥ sapāñcālāḥ sasūñjayāḥ ||
Sañjaya said: “O noble one, just as darkness vanishes when the Sun and the dawn are seen, so too may the sons of Kuntī—together with the Pāñcālas and with Sūñjaya—be brought to ruin.”
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse uses a sunrise metaphor to portray the enemy’s destruction as natural and inevitable—highlighting how, in war, moral language and imagery are employed to justify violence by equating one side with ‘darkness’ that must disappear.
Sañjaya, reporting the battlefield situation to the king, voices (or conveys) a wish that the Pāṇḍavas and their allies—the Pāñcālas and Sūñjaya—should be destroyed, comparing their end to darkness vanishing at the sight of the Sun and dawn.