Shloka 17
Bhīmasena–Hanūmān Saṃvāda: The Tail Test and the Divine Path
सक्तचक्षुरभिप्रायान् हृदयेनानुचिन्तयन् । पुंस्कोकिलनिनादेषु षघट्पदाचरितेषु च
saktacakṣur abhiprāyān hṛdayenānucintayan | puṁskokilaninādeṣu ṣaṭpadācariteṣu ca
Vaiśampāyana said: With his gaze held fast and his heart turning over its intentions again and again, he listened to the calls of the male cuckoos and watched the places frequented by the bees—absorbed in inward reflection amid the sounds and signs of the forest. The verse highlights how the mind, when seized by longing or resolve, reads meaning into nature and becomes fixed on its inner purpose.
वैशम्पायन उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse portrays how a person’s inner resolve or longing can fix the senses and make the mind repeatedly rehearse its intentions; nature’s sounds become a backdrop that mirrors and intensifies inward contemplation.
The narrator describes someone in the forest absorbed in thought—eyes fixed, heart brooding—attentive to the cuckoos’ calls and the bee-haunted spots, indicating a mood of concentrated inner preoccupation amid wilderness surroundings.