Shloka 20
न चेदद्य हि त॑ वीरं निहनिष्यसि संयुगे । प्राणानेव परित्यक्ष्ये जीवितार्थो हि को मम,“यदि आज युद्धस्थलमें तुम वीर कर्णका वध नहीं करोगे तो मैं अपने प्राणोंका ही परित्याग कर दूँगा। फिर मेरे जीवनका प्रयोजन ही क्या है?”
na ced adya hi taṁ vīraṁ nihaniṣyasi saṁyuge | prāṇān eva parityakṣye jīvitārtho hi ko mama ||
Sañjaya said: “If today, on the battlefield, you do not slay that hero, then I will renounce my very life-breaths. For what purpose would my life serve then?”
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse highlights how, in the extremity of war, a person may treat a single decisive act as the condition for life’s meaning—using a vow of self-abandonment to compel action. It raises ethical tension between steadfast resolve and coercive pressure, showing how dharma in battle can be invoked in absolute, life-or-death terms.
Sañjaya reports a forceful declaration: if the addressed warrior does not kill Karṇa that very day in combat, the speaker claims he will give up his own life. The statement intensifies the urgency around Karṇa’s defeat as pivotal to the war’s outcome.