Shloka 53
धृतराष्ट्र-संजय-संवादः — दुर्योधनस्य ह्रदप्रवेशः
Dhṛtarāṣṭra–Saṃjaya Dialogue: Duryodhana’s Entry into the Lake
अद्य ते निहनिष्यामि क्षरेणोन्मथितं शिर: । वृक्षात् फलमिवाविद्धं लगुडेन प्रमाथिना,“जिन दुरात्माओंने पूर्वकालमें हमलोगोंकी हँसी उड़ायी थी, वे सब मारे गये। अब केवल कुलांगार दुर्योधन और उसका मामा तू--ये दो ही बच गये हैं। जैसे मथ डालनेवाले डंडेसे मारकर पेड़से फल तोड़ लिया जाता है, उसी प्रकार आज मैं क्षुरके द्वारा तेरा मस्तक काटकर तुझे मौतके हवाले कर दूँगा”
adya te nihaniṣyāmi kṣureṇonmathitaṃ śiraḥ | vṛkṣāt phalam ivāviddhaṃ laguḍena pramāthinā ||
Sañjaya said: “Today I shall strike you down, severing your head with a razor-sharp blade—just as a fruit is knocked from a tree by a crushing club.” The utterance conveys the war’s grim moral collapse: victory is framed not as righteous restraint but as total annihilation of the remaining foe, with violent imagery meant to intimidate and to seal the end of a ruined lineage.
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse highlights how, in the final stages of war, speech and intent can abandon restraint and dharmic moderation, turning into threats of absolute destruction; it implicitly warns that prolonged hatred corrodes ethical judgment and reduces opponents to objects to be ‘felled’ like fruit.
Sañjaya reports a warrior’s fierce threat to behead an opponent with a sharp blade, using a vivid simile: knocking fruit from a tree with a crushing club—signaling imminent lethal combat and the desire to end the remaining resistance.