Shloka 17
Strī Parva, Adhyāya 2 — Vidura’s Consolation on Kāla, Karma, and the Limits of Lamentation (विदुरोपदेशः)
शरीराग्निषु शूराणां जुह॒वुस्ते शराहुती: । हूयमानान् शरांश्वैव सेहुस्तेजस्विनो मिथ:,शूरवीरोंके शरीररूपी अग्नियोंमें उन्होंने बाणोंकी आहुतियाँ दी हैं और उन तेजस्वी वीरोंने एक-दूसरेकी शरीराग्नियोंमें होम किये जानेवाले बाणोंको सहन किया है
śarīrāgniṣu śūrāṇāṃ juhavus te śarāhutīḥ | hūyamānān śarāṃś caiva sehustejasvino mithaḥ ||
Vidura says: In the very bodies of the heroes—likened to sacrificial fires—they poured oblations of arrows. And those radiant warriors, in turn, endured the arrows being offered into one another’s bodily fires. The verse frames battle as a grim yajña: courage becomes the ritual discipline, and endurance the costly offering, revealing both the valor and the terrible moral weight of war.
विदुर उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse uses yajña-metaphor to portray warfare: heroes ‘offer’ arrows as oblations into the ‘fires’ of bodies, while the opposing warriors endure those offerings. It highlights disciplined valor and mutual endurance, while also underscoring the grim sacrificial cost of violence.
Vidura describes the mutual exchange of arrows between heroic fighters as if it were a sacrificial rite: each side casts arrows into the other’s ‘body-fire,’ and the radiant warriors withstand the incoming shafts. It is a poetic depiction of intense combat and reciprocal suffering.