Shloka 14
Aśvatthāmā’s Stuti of Rudra and Śiva’s Empowerment (सौप्तिकपर्व, अध्याय ७)
तस्यां वेद्यां तदा राजंश्रित्रभानुरजायत । स दिशो विदिश: खं च ज्वालाभिरिव पूरयन्,राजन! उस वेदीपर तत्काल ही अग्निदेव प्रकट हो गये, जो अपनी ज्वालाओंसे सम्पूर्ण दिशाओं-विदिशाओं और आकाशको परिपूर्ण-सा कर रहे थे
tasyāṁ vedyāṁ tadā rājan śitrabhānur ajāyata | sa diśo vidiśaḥ khaṁ ca jvālābhir iva pūrayan ||
Sañjaya said: “O King, at that altar, at that very moment, Agni—radiant with bright flames—manifested. With his tongues of fire he seemed to fill the quarters and intermediate directions, and even the whole sky.”
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse underscores the Mahābhārata’s sense that human violence and decisions unfold under a larger cosmic and ritual horizon: divine forces (here Agni) can appear as signs that actions are being witnessed and measured against order (ṛta/dharma), even amid the moral darkness of war.
Sañjaya reports to Dhṛtarāṣṭra that, upon a sacrificial altar, Agni suddenly manifests in a blazing form, his flames seeming to pervade all directions and the sky—an awe-inducing epiphany that functions like an omen and heightens the gravity of the events in the Sauptika episode.