Shloka 75
युधिष्ठिरस्य धनंजय-प्रति गर्हा
Yudhiṣṭhira’s Reproach to Dhanaṃjaya
शिरोभिरययुद्धशौण्डानां सर्वतः संवृता मही | यथा भुवि तथा व्योम्नि निःस्वनं शुश्रुवुर्जना:
śirobhir ayayuddhaśauṇḍānāṁ sarvataḥ saṁvṛtā mahī | yathā bhuvi tathā vyomni niḥsvanaṁ śuśruvur janāḥ ||
Sañjaya said: The earth was hemmed in on every side by the severed heads of warriors who had rushed into battle. And as the din resounded across the ground, so too it echoed through the sky—people heard the terrible roar of war everywhere.
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse underscores the catastrophic cost of war: when martial pride and battle-fury dominate, the world becomes pervaded by suffering and terror. It implicitly warns that even ‘heroic’ warfare, though framed within kṣatriya duty, produces pervasive harm that no realm—earth or sky—escapes.
Sañjaya describes the battlefield’s aftermath and intensity: the ground is strewn and covered with the heads of fallen fighters, and the uproar of combat is so immense that it seems to fill both earth and sky, heard by all around.