Shloka 4
भीष्मपातने कर्णविलापः | Karṇa’s Lament upon Seeing Bhīṣma Fallen
स्रोतसा यामुनेनेव शरौघेण परिप्लुतम् । महेन्द्रेणेव मैनाकमसहां भुवि पातितम्,वे यमुनाके जलप्रवाहके समान बाणसमूहसे व्याप्त हो रहे थे। उन्हें देखकर ऐसा जान पड़ता था, मानो महेन्द्रने असह्य मैनाक पर्वतको धरतीपर गिरा दिया हो
srotasā yāmuneneva śaraughena pariplutam | mahendreṇeva mainākam asahāṃ bhuvi pātitam ||
Sañjaya said: “It was flooded by a torrent of arrows, like a current of the Yamunā in full flow. To behold it was as though Mahendra (Indra) had hurled down to the earth the unendurable mountain Maināka.” The verse heightens the moral horror of war by likening human-made violence to overwhelming natural and cosmic forces, suggesting a battlefield where restraint and ordinary human limits are swept away.
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse does not give a direct injunction, but its imagery teaches how war can become an overwhelming force that sweeps away human measure and restraint. By comparing arrows to a river-torrent and the scene to a god casting down a mountain, it underscores the ethical gravity of violence and the way adharma can surge when conflict escalates beyond control.
Sañjaya reports to Dhṛtarāṣṭra that the battlefield (or a warrior/formation within it) is being inundated by a dense barrage of arrows. The spectacle is so extreme that it resembles a natural flood, and even a cosmic event—Indra hurling down the mighty mountain Maināka.