Shloka 8
Adhyāya 40 (Book 7, Droṇa-parva): Abhimanyu’s Rapid Advance and Battlefield Disruption
शासितास्म्यद्य ते बाणै: सर्वसैन्यस्य पश्यत: । अद्याहमनृणस्तस्य कोपस्य भविता रणे,“दुर्मते! तू अपने उस अधर्मका भयंकर फल प्राप्त कर। आज मैं सारी सेनाओंके देखते-देखते अपने बाणोंद्वारा तुझे दण्ड दूँगा। आज मैं युद्धमें उन महात्मा पितरोंके उस क्रोधका बदला चुकाकर उऋण हो जाऊँगा
śāsitāsmy adya te bāṇaiḥ sarvasainyasya paśyataḥ | adyāham anṛṇas tasya kopasya bhavitā raṇe ||
Sañjaya said: “Today, before the eyes of the entire army, I shall punish you with my arrows. Today, in battle, I shall become free of the debt of that wrath—discharging the long-standing anger (of the revered elders/forefathers) by exacting its due.”
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse frames vengeance as a form of settling an obligation: the speaker vows to become anṛṇa—released from a moral/emotional debt—by answering an inherited or long-held wrath through public, martial punishment. It highlights how, in the epic’s war-ethic, honor and duty can be expressed as repayment of a perceived debt, though it also exposes the dangerous logic by which anger is treated as something to be 'paid off' in violence.
In the midst of the Drona Parva battle, a warrior (reported by Sañjaya) declares that he will punish his opponent with arrows in full view of all troops. He presents this act as fulfilling and discharging the wrath associated with revered elders/forefathers, claiming that by doing so he will be free of that burden in the fight.