Shloka 9

Devanagari script

तन्नराश्वौघबहुलं मत्तनागरथाकुलम्‌

Transliteration

tan-narāśvaugha-bahulaṁ matta-nāga-rathākulam

Translation

Sañjaya said: “It was a dense, surging mass of men and horses, crowded with chariots and intoxicated elephants—an overwhelming press of war-traffic where force and confusion swelled together.”

Word by Word

• तत्: that (field/scene)
• तत्: Karta
• Type: Pronoun
• Root: तद्
• Form: Neuter, Nominative, Singular

• नराश्वौघबहुलम्: abounding in masses of men and horses
• नराश्वौघबहुलम्: Karta
• Type: Adjective
• Root: नर + अश्व + ओघ + बहुल
• Form: Neuter, Nominative, Singular

• मत्तनागरथाकुलम्: filled with chariots and intoxicated elephants
• मत्तनागरथाकुलम्: Karta
• Type: Adjective
• Root: मत्त + नाग + रथ + आकुल
• Form: Neuter, Nominative, Singular

Speaker

संजय उवाच

Characters & Entities

• Sañjaya
• men/warriors (nara)
• horses (aśva)
• war-elephants (nāga)
• chariots (ratha)

Educational Q&A

What is the core teaching?

The verse is primarily descriptive rather than didactic: it highlights how war compresses living beings and instruments into a single turbulent mass, suggesting the ethical gravity of battle—where individual agency is easily swallowed by collective frenzy.

What is happening in the narrative?

Sañjaya depicts the battlefield as packed with warriors and horses, and crowded with chariots and frenzied elephants, conveying the density, noise, and confusion of the ongoing combat in the Karṇa Parva.