Shloka 31
Nakula’s Engagement with Citra-sena and Karṇa’s Sons; Śalya Re-stabilizes the Kaurava Host
कवचोष्णीषसंछज्ञा पताकारुचिरद्रुमा । चक्रचक्रावलीजुष्टा त्रिवेणूरगसंवृता
kavacoṣṇīṣasaṃchannā patākāruciradrumā | cakracakrāvalījuṣṭā triveṇūragasaṃvṛtā ||
Sañjaya said: “Thereupon, on that battlefield, a river of blood began to flow—running as though toward the world beyond. Its water was blood; chariots looked like swirling eddies; banners stood like trees along its banks; bones seemed like pebbles and stones; severed arms appeared like serpents; bows were its streams; elephants rose like mountains on its sides and horses like scattered boulders. Fat and marrow formed its mire; parasols were like swans upon it; maces seemed like boats. Coats of mail and turbans spread over its surface like moss; pennants shone like beautiful trees; clusters of wheels drank from it like flocks of cakravāka-birds; and it was filled with ‘Triveṇu’ serpents.”
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse uses a stark extended metaphor—turning the battlefield into a ‘river of blood’—to underline the moral cost of war: glory and power are purchased with suffering, and the material signs of heroism (armor, banners, chariots) become mere debris in a landscape of death. It implicitly warns that when dharma collapses into violence, the world itself appears inverted and polluted.
Sañjaya, narrating the Kurukṣetra war, describes the scene after intense fighting: blood flows like a river, and the scattered instruments of battle—wheels, banners, armor, turbans—are poetically reimagined as features of that river (trees, birds, moss, serpents), emphasizing the battlefield’s horrific transformation.