Shloka 55
धृष्टद्युम्नस्य द्रोणरथारोহণं सात्यकेः प्रतिरक्षणं च | Dhrishtadyumna Boards Droṇa’s Chariot; Sātyaki’s Counter-Protection
नूनं स पातितः शेते धरण्यां रुधिरोक्षित:
nūnaṃ sa pātitaḥ śete dharaṇyāṃ rudhirokṣitaḥ
Sañjaya said: Surely he has been struck down and now lies upon the earth, drenched in blood—an image of war’s grim certainty, where valor and fate culminate in a fallen body and the moral weight of violence becomes unmistakable.
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The line underscores the stark consequence of violence: in war, certainty replaces speculation when a life is visibly ended. Ethically, it presses the listener to confront the real cost of conflict—bodies on the ground, bloodshed, and the heavy karmic and dharmic burden that accompanies such outcomes.
Sañjaya, reporting the battlefield to Dhṛtarāṣṭra, infers with certainty that a particular warrior has been felled and is now lying on the earth, soaked in blood. The verse functions as a vivid, immediate confirmation of a combatant’s fall amid the ongoing carnage of the Droṇa Parva.