Shloka 233
कर्णपर्व — अध्याय ५७
Arjuna’s targeted advance; Śalya–Karṇa dialogue; interception attempts
पतितैर्ऋषषभाक्षाणां विराजति वसुंधरा । साँड़के समान विशाल नेत्रोंवाले वेगशाली वीरोंके दस्तानोंसहित आभूषणभूषित हाथ कटकर गिरे हैं। हाथियोंके शुण्डदण्डोंके समान मोटी जाँघें खण्डित होकर पड़ी हैं तथा श्रेष्ठ चूड़ामणि धारण किये कुण्डलमण्डित मस्तक भी धड़से अलग होकर पड़े हैं। इन सबके द्वारा रणभूमिकी अपूर्व शोभा हो रही है
sañjaya uvāca | patitair ṛṣabhākṣāṇāṃ virājati vasuṃdharā |
Sanjaya said: The earth shines, strewn with the fallen—mighty warriors with bull-like eyes. Hands adorned with ornaments, still bearing their protective arm-guards, have been severed and lie scattered. Thick thighs, massive like the trunks of elephants, are broken and cast down; and heads, decked with earrings and crowned with excellent crest-jewels, lie apart from their bodies. By all this, the battlefield displays a strange and unprecedented splendor—an image that simultaneously proclaims valor and exposes the terrible cost of war.
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse uses stark, almost aestheticized battlefield imagery to underline the paradox of war: what appears as 'splendor' is built from dismemberment and death. Ethically, it presses the listener to recognize the cost of adharma-driven conflict and the impermanence of bodily glory, even when associated with heroic valor.
Sanjaya reports to the blind king Dhritarashtra the condition of the battlefield: severed hands with ornaments and guards, broken thighs compared to elephant trunks, and heads adorned with earrings and crest-jewels lying apart from bodies. The scene conveys the intensity of the fighting and the devastation among elite warriors.