Shloka 18
Karṇa-parva Adhyāya 19 — Saṃśaptaka–Trigarta Assault and Aindra-astra Counter
महता रथघोषेण दिवं भूमिं च नादयन् । वर्षान्ति सस्यहा मेघो भासि ह्वादीव पार्थिव,“राजन! तुम अपने रथके गम्भीर घोषसे आकाश और पृथ्वीको प्रतिध्वनित करते हुए शरत्कालमें गर्जना करनेवाले सस्यनाशक मेघके समान जान पड़ते हो
mahatā rathaghoṣeṇa divaṃ bhūmiṃ ca nādayan | varṣānti sasyahā megho bhāsi hrādīva pārthiva ||
Sañjaya said: “O King, with the deep thunder of your chariot you make both heaven and earth resound. You appear like a crop-destroying cloud that roars at the end of the rains—like a great lake swelling and rumbling in the season.”
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse highlights how martial power and royal presence can inspire awe and fear: the king’s chariot-roar is likened to a destructive seasonal cloud. Ethically, it underscores the ambivalence of power in war—grandeur that can also portend harm, reminding rulers that their might affects the whole world around them.
Sañjaya, narrating the battlefield to Dhṛtarāṣṭra, describes the king’s (addressed as ‘pārthiva’) chariot making the sky and earth reverberate. He uses vivid similes—an end-of-monsoon, crop-damaging cloud and a swelling lake—to convey the overwhelming, ominous intensity of the war-scene.