Shloka 10
कृष्णेन अर्जुनस्य प्रोत्साहनम् — Kṛṣṇa’s Exhortation to Arjuna
Prelude to Karṇa’s Slaying
बिभयाद् युवती श्यामा तद्वदासीद् वसुंधरा । मांसशोणितचित्रेव शातकुम्भमयीव च
bibhyād yuvatī śyāmā tadvad āsīd vasuṃdharā | māṃsaśoṇitacitreva śātakumbhamayīva ca ||
Sañjaya said: The earth itself seemed afraid—like a dark-complexioned young woman; so too did the battlefield appear. Smeared and patterned with flesh and blood, that ground seemed, paradoxically, as though made of gold—an image that lays bare the dreadful cost of war and the moral dissonance between martial glory and human suffering.
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse highlights the ethical tension of war: what may be celebrated as heroic splendor is, in reality, stained by suffering. By likening blood-soaked ground to gold, it exposes the unsettling way violence can be aesthetically or socially ‘glorified’ despite its moral cost.
Sañjaya narrates to Dhṛtarāṣṭra the terrifying appearance of the battlefield. The earth seems fearful and dark, and the ground is depicted as ‘painted’ with flesh and blood, yet shining as if golden—an intense visual of carnage during the Karṇa Parva fighting.