Shloka 36
Adhyāya 283: Varṇa-vṛtti, Nyāya-ārjana, and the Decline-and-Restoration of Dharma (वर्णवृत्तिः न्यायार्जनं च)
ते निपेतुस्ततस्तूर्ण दक्षयज्ञविहिंसया । भीमरूपा महाकाया: शतशो5थ सहसत्रश:
te nipetustatas tūrṇaṁ dakṣayajñavihiṁsayā | bhīmarūpā mahākāyāḥ śataśo 'tha sahasraśaḥ ||
Then, as Dakṣa’s sacrifice was being violently disrupted, they fell down at once—terrible in form and huge in body—dropping in by the hundreds and then by the thousands. The scene underscores how sacrificial order, when driven by pride or violated through aggression, can collapse into chaos and mass destruction.
दक्ष उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse highlights how violence and disruption—especially around sacred or socially binding institutions like yajña—can rapidly multiply into large-scale chaos. It implicitly warns that ritual without humility and ethical restraint becomes vulnerable to collapse and harm.
Dakṣa describes a sudden mass descent/fall of terrifying, gigantic beings amid the violent disruption of Dakṣa’s sacrifice, emphasizing the scale and immediacy of the calamity—hundreds, then thousands.