Shloka 54
कर्णनिधनश्रवणम् — Hearing of Karṇa’s Fall and Dhṛtarāṣṭra’s Lament
यथा कृष्णेन नरको मुरुश्न नरकारिणा । कार्तवीर्यश्ष॒ रामेण भार्गवेण यथा हत:
yathā kṛṣṇena narako muruśna narakāriṇā | kārtavīryaś ca rāmeṇa bhārgaveṇa yathā hataḥ ||
Sañjaya said: “Just as Naraka was slain by Kṛṣṇa—the destroyer of Naraka—and just as Kārtavīrya was slain by Rāma Bhārgava (Paraśurāma), so too (in this manner) was he brought down.” The verse frames the present killing within remembered exemplars: the fall of oppressive power at the hands of divinely empowered agents, implying that might without righteousness meets a fitting end.
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse teaches by analogy: when power becomes oppressive or adharma-driven, its downfall is portrayed as inevitable and fitting, comparable to well-known precedents where divinely empowered figures remove destructive rulers.
Sañjaya describes a present slaying on the battlefield and heightens its significance by comparing it to famous earlier killings—Kṛṣṇa’s defeat of Naraka and Paraśurāma’s defeat of Kārtavīrya—thereby casting the current event as part of a recognizable moral-historical pattern.