Shloka 1
इस प्रकार श्रीमह्याभारत कर्णपर्वमें अर्जुनवाक्यविषयक चौहत्तरवाँ अध्याय पूरा हुआ ॥/ ७४ ॥। अपने-आप बछ। अर: अं पञ्चसप्ततितमो< ध्याय: दोनों पक्षोंकी सेनाओंमें दन्द्रयुद्ध तथा सुषेणका वध ध्ृतराष्ट्र उवाच समागमे पाण्डवसृज्जयानां महाभये मामकानामगाधे । धनंजये तात रणाय याते कर्णेन तद् युद्धमथो<त्र कीदूक्ू
Dhṛtarāṣṭra uvāca: samāgame pāṇḍava-sṛñjayānāṃ mahābhaye māmakānām agādhe | dhanañjaye tāta raṇāya yāte karṇena tad yuddham atho ’tra kīdṛk ||
Dhṛtarāṣṭra said: “O dear Sañjaya, when the Pāṇḍavas and the Sṛñjayas had already joined battle with my sons in a war vast and terrifying beyond measure, what did that conflict become like when Dhanañjaya (Arjuna) himself arrived there to fight Karṇa? Describe the nature of that battle.”
ध्ृतराष्ट्र उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse frames war as an immeasurable, fearsome consequence of prior choices: Dhṛtarāṣṭra’s possessive identification (“māmakāḥ”) and anxious questioning highlight how attachment and moral blindness in rulership culminate in catastrophic conflict, where even the arrival of a single great warrior can transform the scale and intensity of violence.
Dhṛtarāṣṭra asks Sañjaya to describe how the battle changed once Arjuna (Dhanañjaya) reached the battlefield to fight Karṇa, implying that the war was already raging fiercely between the Pāṇḍava-Sṛñjaya alliance and the Kaurava forces.