Shloka 41
संतापं मानसं वीरश्विरसम्भूतमात्मन: । “आज वीर राजा युधिष्छठिर महान् कष्ट और अपने चिरसंचित मानसिक संतापसे छुटकारा पा जायूँगे ।। अद्य केशव राधेयमहं हत्वा सबान्धवम्
saṃtāpaṃ mānasaṃ vīraś cirasambhūtam ātmanaḥ | “adya vīra rājā yudhiṣṭhiraḥ mahān kaṣṭaṃ ca sva-cirasañcita-mānasa-saṃtāpāt chūṭkāraṃ prāpsyāmi | adya keśava rādheyam ahaṃ hatvā sabāndhavam”
Sañjaya said: “The long-accumulated anguish in my own mind will be brought to an end today. Today the heroic king Yudhiṣṭhira will be freed from great distress and from his long-stored inner torment. Today, having slain Keśava and Rādheya together with their allies and kinsmen, I shall secure that release.”
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse foregrounds how war is driven not only by strategy but by accumulated inner anguish and the desire for release. It implicitly warns that seeking ‘relief’ through killing—even of revered figures—reveals the moral peril of letting long-held resentment and suffering harden into violent resolve.
Sañjaya reports a speaker’s intense resolve: that on this very day Yudhiṣṭhira will be freed from great distress and long-standing mental torment, because the speaker intends to kill Keśava (Kṛṣṇa) and Rādheya (Karna) along with their allies/kinsmen—an expression of the escalating ferocity in the Karṇa Parva battle context.