Shloka 84

Udyoga-parva Adhyāya 47 — Arjuna’s Deterrent Declaration

Sañjaya’s Report

Devanagari script

तत्रैव तेनास्य बभूव युद्ध महाबलेनातिबलस्य विष्णो: । शेते स कृष्णेन हत: परासु- वतिनेवोन्मथित: कर्णिकार:

Transliteration

tatraiva tenāsya babhūva yuddhaṃ mahābalenātibalasya viṣṇoḥ | śete sa kṛṣṇena hataḥ parāsu-vātinevonmathitaḥ karṇikāraḥ ||

Translation

સંજય બોલ્યા—ત્યાં જ મહાબલી નરકાસુર સાથે અતિબલશાળી વિષ્ણુ-સ્વરૂપ શ્રીકૃષ્ણનું ઘોર યુદ્ધ થયું. શ્રીકૃષ્ણના હાથથી હણાઈ તે પ્રાણહીન થયો અને રણભૂમિમાં સદાકાળ માટે એવો પડ્યો રહ્યો, જેમ વાવાઝોડાથી ઉખડેલો કર્ણિકાર વૃક્ષ.

Word by Word

• {'tatraiva': 'right there, on that very spot', 'tena': 'with him

• by that (foe)', 'asya': 'of him', 'babhūva': 'there occurred

• came to be', 'yuddham': 'battle, combat', 'mahābalena': 'by/with the very mighty one', 'atibalasya': 'of the exceedingly strong', 'viṣṇoḥ': 'of Viṣṇu (here, Kṛṣṇa as the divine power)', 'śete': 'lies, rests (on the ground)', 'sa': 'he', 'kṛṣṇena': 'by Kṛṣṇa', 'hataḥ': 'slain, struck down', 'parāsuḥ': 'bereft of life

• dead', 'vātinā': 'by the wind/storm', 'iva': 'like, as if', 'unmathitaḥ': 'uprooted, violently torn out', 'karṇikāraḥ': 'karṇikāra tree (a flowering tree

Speaker

संजय उवाच

Characters & Entities

• Sañjaya
• Kṛṣṇa
• Viṣṇu
• Narakāsura
• battlefield
• karṇikāra tree
• wind/storm

Educational Q&A

What is the core teaching?

The verse highlights the moral that sheer physical might and arrogance are fragile when opposed by dharmic, divinely aligned action; death comes swiftly to those who stand against righteous order, and poetic imagery (the uprooted tree) stresses impermanence and the decisive fall of adharma.

What is happening in the narrative?

Sañjaya describes a fierce combat in which Kṛṣṇa (identified with Viṣṇu) fights an extremely powerful enemy (identified in the accompanying Hindi as Narakāsura) and kills him; the slain foe lies on the battlefield like a tree uprooted by a storm.