Shloka 6
जीर्णसिंहमिव प्रांशुं नरसिंहं पितामहम् | कीर्यमाणं शरैर्दृष्टवा भृशं मे व्यथितं मन:,जब मैंने देखा कि अर्जुनके वज्रोपम बाणोंसे आहत हो बूढ़े सिंहके समान मेरे उन्नतकाय पुरुषसिंह पितामह कम्पित हो रहे हैं और उन्हें चक्कर-सा आने लगा है, शिखण्डी उनकी ओर देख रहा है और उनका सारा शरीर बाणोंसे खचाखच भर गया है तो यह सब देखकर मेरे मनमें बड़ी व्यथा हुई
jīrṇa-siṁham iva prāṁśuṁ nara-siṁhaṁ pitāmaham | kīryamāṇaṁ śarair dṛṣṭvā bhṛśaṁ me vyathitaṁ manaḥ ||
Yudhiṣṭhira said: “When I saw the grandsire—lofty like an aged lion, a lion among men—being covered over with arrows, my mind was deeply pained. The sight of the venerable elder, shaken and overwhelmed amid the violence of battle, struck me with anguish, for it revealed how even the highest dharma-bearers can be brought low by the inexorable course of war.”
युधिछिर उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse foregrounds the ethical cost of war: even when fought under the banner of dharma, violence produces profound sorrow, especially when revered elders and exemplars of duty suffer. Yudhiṣṭhira’s pain signals the Mahābhārata’s insistence that righteous ends do not erase the human and moral burden of means.
Yudhiṣṭhira describes witnessing the grandsire Bhīṣma—towering and heroic—being overwhelmed by a shower of arrows on the battlefield. The spectacle of the venerable elder brought to a trembling, afflicted state fills him with intense anguish.