Shloka 283

Devanagari script

स्वलंकृतांस्तदा प्रेष्पानिच्छन्‌ जीवितमात्मन: । “महाराज! जिन दूसरे इन सात सौ हाथियोंको आप देख रहे हैं, जो कवचसे आच्छादित हैं और जिनपर किरात योद्धा चढ़े हुए हैं, ये वे ही हाथी हैं, जिन्हें दिग्विजयके समय अपने प्राण बचानेकी इच्छा रखकर किरातराजने सव्यसाची अर्जुनको भेंट किया था। ये सजे-सजाये हाथी उन दिनों आपके सेवक थे

Transliteration

svalaṅkṛtāṁs tadā preṣyān icchan jīvitam ātmanaḥ |

Translation

Sañjaya said: “O King, those seven hundred elephants you now see—armoured and mounted by Kirāta warriors—are the very elephants that the Kirāta king once presented to Savyasācī Arjuna during the campaign of conquest, seeking thereby to preserve his own life. Those well-adorned elephants were, in those days, in your service.”

Word by Word

• {'svalaṅkṛtān': 'well-adorned, richly caparisoned', 'tadā': 'then, at that time', 'preṣyān': 'attendants

• those in service (also: servants/retainers)', 'icchan': 'desiring, wishing', 'jīvitam': 'life, survival', 'ātmanaḥ': 'of himself, one’s own', 'Kirāta': 'a mountain/forest people

• here, the Kirāta king and his warriors', 'kavaca': 'armour, protective covering', 'ārūḍha': 'mounted upon, having ascended', 'hastin': 'elephant', 'digdvijaya': 'conquest of the quarters

• royal campaign of subjugation', 'Savyasācī': '‘ambidextrous’

• epithet of Arjuna', 'bhent/dāna (sense)': 'gift, offering (as a political submission/tribute)'}

Speaker

संजय उवाच

Characters & Entities

• Sañjaya
• Mahārāja (Dhṛtarāṣṭra)
• Arjuna (Savyasācī)
• Kirāta-rāja (Kirāta king)
• Kirāta warriors
• seven hundred elephants
• armour (kavaca)

Educational Q&A

What is the core teaching?

The verse highlights how political submission and gifts (tribute) function as instruments of survival: a weaker ruler preserves life and realm by acknowledging superior power. Ethically, it shows the tension between self-preservation and autonomy, and how allegiance can shift with changing fortunes in war.

What is happening in the narrative?

Sañjaya identifies a contingent of armoured elephants with Kirāta riders on the battlefield and reminds Dhṛtarāṣṭra that these elephants were earlier given by the Kirāta king to Arjuna during Arjuna’s digvijaya, when the Kirāta ruler sought to save his life by offering tribute.