Shloka 13
Adhyāya 17 — Gandhārī’s Vilāpa at Duryodhana’s Body (स्त्रीपर्व, अध्याय १७)
यं पुरा पर्युपासीना रमयन्ति वरस्त्रिय: । तं॑ वीरशयने सुप्तं रमयन्त्यशिवा: शिवा:,'पूर्वालमें जिसके पास बैठकर सुन्दरी स्त्रियाँ उसका मनोरंजन करती थीं, वीरशय्यापर सोये हुए आज उसी वीरका ये अमंगलकारिणी गीदड़ियाँ मन-बहलाव करती हैं
yaṁ purā paryupāsīnā ramayanti varastriyaḥ | taṁ vīraśayane suptaṁ ramayantyaśivāḥ śivāḥ ||
Vaiśampāyana said: “He whom, in former days, noble and beautiful women would sit around and delight with entertainments—him, now asleep upon the hero’s bed (the battlefield couch), these inauspicious jackals ‘entertain’ instead.” The verse underscores the moral reversal wrought by war: worldly honor and sensual delight collapse into the grim companionship of scavengers, reminding the listener of impermanence and the tragic cost of adharma-driven conflict.
वैशम्पायन उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse teaches the fragility of worldly glory: the same warrior once surrounded by refined pleasures is now reduced to a corpse-like ‘sleep’ on the battlefield, attended only by scavengers. It functions as an ethical warning about the ruinous consequences of war and the impermanence of status and enjoyment.
In the lament-filled atmosphere of the Strī Parva, the narrator contrasts the warrior’s former life of honor and entertainment by noble women with his present condition on the battlefield, where jackals roam and cry around the fallen, creating a stark image of post-war devastation.