Shloka 31
दुर्योधन द्रौणिमुखांश्व॒ सर्वा- नहं रणे वृषसेनं तमुग्रम् । सम्पश्यत: कर्ण तवाद्य संख्ये नयामि लोकं निशितै: पृषत्कै:
sañjaya uvāca |
duryodhana drauṇimukhāṁś ca sarvān ahaṁ raṇe vṛṣasenaṁ tam ugram |
sampaśyataḥ karṇa tavādya saṅkhye nayāmi lokaṁ niśitaiḥ pṛṣatkaiḥ ||
Sañjaya said: “O Karṇa, while you look on today in the thick of battle, I shall, with my sharp arrows, send that fierce Vṛṣasena—and all those foremost warriors beginning with Aśvatthāmā—into the world of the dead. This is a vow of annihilation spoken in the heat of war, where personal loyalty and martial pride harden into a resolve to kill before the eyes of an ally, intensifying both the ethical gravity and the narrative tension of the conflict.”
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse highlights how, in war, vows driven by loyalty and wrath can eclipse restraint: the speaker frames killing as a deliberate resolve, reminding the listener that martial duty (kṣatriya-ethos) carries heavy moral weight when it becomes personal vengeance and public humiliation (killing ‘while you watch’).
Sañjaya reports a warrior’s fierce declaration addressed to Karṇa: he threatens to kill Karṇa’s son Vṛṣasena and also the group led by Aśvatthāmā, sending them to death with sharp arrows, explicitly emphasizing that this will occur in Karṇa’s very presence on that day’s battlefield.