Shloka 99
नलस्य बाहुकत्वेन ऋतुपर्णनगरप्रवेशः
Nala as Bāhuka enters Ṛtuparṇa’s city
क्व सा पुण्यजला रम्या नदी द्विजनिषेविता । क्व नु ते ह नगा हृद्या: फलपुष्पोपशोभिता:,“वह पुण्यसलिला रमणीय नदी, जिसपर पक्षी निवास कर रहे थे, कहाँ चली गयी? फल और फूलोंसे सुशोभित वे मनोरम वृक्ष कहाँ विलीन हो गये!”
kva sā puṇyajalā ramyā nadī dvijanisevitā | kva nu te ha nagā hṛdyāḥ phalapuṣpopaśobhitāḥ ||
Dijo Bṛhadaśva: «¿Adónde se ha ido ahora aquel río encantador, de aguas sagradas—frecuentado por los dos veces nacidos? ¿Y dónde, en verdad, han desaparecido aquellos árboles deleitosos, engalanados de frutos y flores?»
बृहृदश्च उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse evokes the sanctity of natural spaces—rivers and fruit-flowering trees—especially as places honored by the dvijas. It underscores how sacred landscapes support dharmic life (ritual purity, study, hospitality) and how their loss or disappearance becomes a moral and emotional rupture.
Bṛhadaśva speaks in a tone of searching and lament, asking where a once-beautiful, holy river and the surrounding fruit-and-flower-laden trees have gone. The questions convey disorientation and the sense that a familiar, life-sustaining landscape has changed or been left behind.