Shloka 18

Devanagari script

महागिरौ वेणुवनं निशि प्रज्वलितं यथा

Transliteration

mahāgirau veṇuvanaṁ niśi prajvalitaṁ yathā

Translation

जैसे किसी महान पर्वत पर बाँसों का वन रात में धधक उठे।

Word by Word

• महागिरौ: on the great mountain
• महागिरौ: Adhikarana
• Type: Noun
• Root: महागिरि
• Form: Masculine, Locative, Singular

• वेणुवनम्: a bamboo-grove
• वेणुवनम्: Karta
• Type: Noun
• Root: वेणुवन
• Form: Neuter, Nominative, Singular

• निशि: at night
• निशि: Adhikarana
• Type: Noun
• Root: निशा
• Form: Feminine, Locative, Singular

• प्रज्वलितम्: blazing, kindled
• प्रज्वलितम्: Karta
• Type: Adjective
• Root: प्र+ज्वल्
• Form: Neuter, Nominative, Singular

• यथा: as, like
• यथा: Adhikarana
• Type: Indeclinable
• Root: यथा

Speaker

संजय उवाच

Characters & Entities

• Sañjaya
• mahāgiri (great mountain)
• veṇuvana (bamboo-grove)

Educational Q&A

What is the core teaching?

The verse uses a stark simile to highlight how violence can appear dazzling and irresistible even amid moral darkness; it implicitly warns that the ‘brightness’ of power and fury in war is inseparable from devastation.

What is happening in the narrative?

Sañjaya is describing the battlefield scene to Dhṛtarāṣṭra, comparing what he sees to a bamboo-grove on a great mountain burning in the night—emphasizing the intense, spreading blaze-like spectacle of the combat.