Shloka 23

Arjuna Confronted by Saindhava Forces during the Aśvamedha Circuit (श्वेतवाहनस्य सैन्धवसंघर्षः)

Devanagari script

अब्रवीद्धि महातेजा: प्रस्थितं मां युधिष्ठिर: । राजानस्ते न हन्तव्या धनंजय कथंचन

Transliteration

abravīd dhi mahātejāḥ prasthitaṃ māṃ yudhiṣṭhiraḥ | rājānas te na hantavyā dhanaṃjaya kathaṃcana, vaktavyāś cāpi rājānaḥ sarve sahasuhṛjjanaiḥ | yudhiṣṭhirasya aśvamedho bhavadbhir anubhūyatām ||

Translation

ဝိုင်သမ္ပာယန မိန့်ကြားသည်– ကျွန်ုပ် ထွက်ခွာသွားစဉ် တန်ခိုးတောက်ပသော ယုဓိဋ္ဌိရက မိန့်တော်မူသည်– «ဓနဉ္ဇယ၊ အဲဒီမင်းတို့ကို မည်သို့ပင်ဖြစ်စေ မသတ်ရ။ ထို့အစား မင်းအားလုံးကို မိတ်ဆွေ၊ သဘောကောင်းသူတို့နှင့်အတူ လာရောက်စေ၍ ယုဓိဋ္ဌိရ၏ အရှွမေဓ အခမ်းအနားကို ခံစားစေကြ» ဟု။ ဤအမိန့်သည် အောင်ပွဲကို ထပ်မံသိမ်းပိုက်ခြင်းမဟုတ်ဘဲ ထိန်းသိမ်းမှု၊ ပြန်လည်သင့်မြတ်ရေးနှင့် ဓမ္မတရားအုပ်ချုပ်မှုကို ရာဇပူဇော်ပွဲဖြင့် ပြန်လည်တည်ဆောက်ခြင်းဟူ၍ ဖော်ပြသည်။

Word by Word

• अब्रवीत्: said/spoke
• अब्रवीत्: Karta
• Type: Verb
• Root: ब्रू (धातु)
• Form: लङ् (अनद्यतनभूत), प्रथम, एकवचन, परस्मैपद

• हि: indeed/for
• Type: Indeclinable
• Root: हि

• महातेजाः: the great-splendoured one
• महातेजाः: Karta
• Type: Adjective
• Root: महातेजस् (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: पुं, प्रथमा, एकवचन

• प्रस्थितम्: departed/setting out
• प्रस्थितम्: Karma
• Type: Adjective
• Root: प्रस्थित (प्र + स्था; कृदन्त-प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: पुं, द्वितीया, एकवचन

• माम्: me
• माम्: Karma
• Type: Noun
• Root: अस्मद् (सर्वनाम-प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: पुं, द्वितीया, एकवचन

• युधिष्ठिरः: Yudhiṣṭhira
• युधिष्ठिरः: Karta
• Type: Noun
• Root: युधिष्ठिर (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: पुं, प्रथमा, एकवचन

• राजानः: kings
• राजानः: Karta
• Type: Noun
• Root: राजन् (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: पुं, प्रथमा, बहुवचन

• ते: those/they
• ते: Karta
• Type: Noun
• Root: तद् (सर्वनाम-प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: पुं, प्रथमा, बहुवचन

• न: not
• Type: Indeclinable
• Root: न

• हन्तव्याः: to be killed (should be killed)
• Type: Adjective
• Root: हन्तव्य (हन् धातु; तव्यत्-कृदन्त)
• Form: पुं, प्रथमा, बहुवचन

• धनंजय: O Dhanañjaya (Arjuna)
• Type: Noun
• Root: धनंजय (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: पुं, सम्बोधन, एकवचन

• कथंचन: in any way/at all
• Type: Indeclinable
• Root: कथंचन

• वक्तव्याः: to be told (should be told)
• Type: Adjective
• Root: वक्तव्य (वच् धातु; तव्यत्-कृदन्त)
• Form: पुं, प्रथमा, बहुवचन

• अथ: then/and now
• Type: Indeclinable
• Root: अथ

• अपि: also/even
• Type: Indeclinable
• Root: अपि

• राजानः: kings
• राजानः: Karma
• Type: Noun
• Root: राजन् (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: पुं, प्रथमा, बहुवचन

• सर्वे: all
• Type: Adjective
• Root: सर्व (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: पुं, प्रथमा, बहुवचन

• सह: together with
• Type: Indeclinable
• Root: सह

• सुहृज्जनैः: with friends/well-wishers
• सुहृज्जनैः: Karana
• Type: Noun
• Root: सुहृज्जन (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: पुं, तृतीया, बहुवचन

• युधिष्ठिरस्य: of Yudhiṣṭhira
• Type: Noun
• Root: युधिष्ठिर (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: पुं, षष्ठी, एकवचन

• अश्वमेधः: Aśvamedha (horse-sacrifice)
• अश्वमेधः: Karta
• Type: Noun
• Root: अश्वमेध (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: पुं, प्रथमा, एकवचन

• भवद्भिः: by you / with you (honorific plural)
• भवद्भिः: Karana
• Type: Noun
• Root: भवत् (सर्वनाम-प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: पुं, तृतीया, बहुवचन

• अनुभूयताम्: let it be experienced/enjoyed
• Type: Verb
• Root: अनु + भू (धातु)
• Form: लोट् (आज्ञार्थ), प्रथम, एकवचन, कर्मणि (passive)

Speaker

वैशम्पायन उवाच

Characters & Entities

• Vaiśaṃpāyana
• Yudhiṣṭhira
• Dhanaṃjaya (Arjuna)
• kings (rājānaḥ)
• Aśvamedha (horse-sacrifice/royal rite)

Educational Q&A

What is the core teaching?

Even after a devastating war, righteous rule requires restraint: enemies are not to be hunted down, but invited into a renewed moral and political order. The Aśvamedha here becomes a means of consolidating sovereignty through consent, hospitality, and dharmic legitimacy rather than violence.

What is happening in the narrative?

As a mission is being undertaken (with the speaker departing), Yudhiṣṭhira gives instructions to Arjuna: do not kill the regional kings; instead, inform them to come with their allies and well-wishers to participate in and enjoy Yudhiṣṭhira’s Aśvamedha festivities.