Shloka 34
हत्वा शतसहस््राणि योधानां निशितै: शरै: । न्यस्तशस्त्रो मम पिता धृष्टद्युम्नेन पातित:,वह बोला--"मेरे पिता अपने तीखे बाणोंसे लाखों योद्धाओंका वध करके जब अस्त्र- शस्त्र नीचे डाल चुके थे, उस अवस्थामें धृष्टद्युम्नने उन्हें मारा है
hatvā śatasahasrāṇi yodhānāṃ niśitaiḥ śaraiḥ | nyastaśastro mama pitā dhṛṣṭadyumnena pātitaḥ ||
Sañjaya said: “After my father had slain hundreds of thousands of warriors with his razor-sharp arrows, when he had laid down his weapons, Dhṛṣṭadyumna struck him down. The act is presented as a killing of one who was disarmed—an ethically charged moment amid the brutal unraveling of dharma in war.”
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse highlights the moral tension of warfare: even after immense slaughter, killing a warrior who has laid down weapons is portrayed as ethically problematic, underscoring how dharma becomes obscured and violated in the later stages of the Kurukṣetra conflict.
Sañjaya reports to Dhṛtarāṣṭra that his father, after killing vast numbers in battle, had put down his weapons; in that disarmed state he was felled by Dhṛṣṭadyumna, and Sañjaya frames it as a wrongful killing of one who had ceased fighting.