Shloka 33
Nakula’s Engagement with Citra-sena and Karṇa’s Sons; Śalya Re-stabilizes the Kaurava Host
तां नदीं परलोकाय वहन्तीमतिभैरवाम् । तेरुर्वाहननौभिस्तै: शूरा: परिघबाहव:
tāṁ nadīṁ paralokāya vahantīm atibhairavām | terur vāhana-naubhis taiḥ śūrāḥ parigha-bāhavaḥ ||
Sañjaya said: That exceedingly dreadful river, bearing beings onward to the world beyond, was crossed by heroic warriors with mace-like mighty arms, each by means of his own conveyance as though it were a boat.
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse frames the battlefield as a passage toward paraloka: death is not merely an end but a transition shaped by one’s karma and chosen path. The warriors’ ‘vehicles as boats’ suggests that one’s means—skill, resolve, and role (svadharma)—becomes the instrument by which one crosses peril toward the next state.
Sañjaya describes a terrifying ‘river’ that carries beings toward the other world, and depicts the heroes as crossing it using their own conveyances like boats. It is vivid war-imagery: the fighters, strong-armed and fearless, move through deadly danger as though traversing a dreadful stream.