Shloka 28
Nakula’s Engagement with Citra-sena and Karṇa’s Sons; Śalya Re-stabilizes the Kaurava Host
मेघोंकी घटाके समान प्रतीत होनेवाले हाथी चारों ओरसे पृथ्वीपर पड़े थे, जो प्रलयकालमें वज्ञ़के आघातसे विदीर्ण होकर गिरे हुए पर्वतोंके समान प्रतीत होते थे ।।
sañjaya uvāca | meghānāṃ ghaṭākā-samāna-pratīta-hastinaḥ sarvataḥ pṛthivyāṃ patitā āsan, ye pralayakāle vajrāghātena vidīrṇāḥ patitā iva parvatāḥ pratibhānti || hayānāṃ sādi-daśnīḥ sārthaṃ patitānāṃ mahītale | rāśayaḥ sama-pradṛśyante giri-mātrās tataḥ tataḥ ||
Sañjaya said: Elephants lay strewn on every side across the earth, their fallen bodies appearing like storm-cloud masses—like mountains split by the thunderbolt and hurled down at the time of cosmic dissolution. Likewise, heaps of horses, fallen on the ground together with their riders, were seen here and there, piled up like hills.
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse underscores the impermanence of embodied life and the immense suffering produced by war: even the mightiest forces—elephants, horses, and warriors—collapse into lifeless heaps. The pralaya and thunderbolt imagery heightens the ethical weight of violence by portraying battle as a world-shattering calamity.
Sañjaya reports to Dhṛtarāṣṭra the दृश्य of the battlefield: elephants lie fallen everywhere, compared to cloud-masses and to mountains split by Indra’s thunderbolt at the end of an age; similarly, horses with their riders have fallen in great piles, seen scattered across the field.