Bhishma Parva Adhyaya 23 Shloka 4 - Mahabharata | Burmese | Vedapath

Vyasa

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Shloka 4

Kurukṣetra-sainyadarśana and Arjuna-viṣāda (धर्मक्षेत्रे समवेता युयुत्सवः — अर्जुनविषाद)

Devanagari script

अजुन उवाच नमस्ते सिद्धसेनानि आर्य मन्दरवासिनि । कुमारि कालि कापालि कपिले कृष्णपिड्ले

Transliteration

arjuna uvāca | namas te siddhasenāni ārye mandaravāsini | kumāri kāli kāpāli kapile kṛṣṇapiṅgale |

Translation

အာဇုန်က ပြောသည်– «စိဒ္ဓတို့၏ တပ်ဖွဲ့ကို ဦးဆောင်သူ၊ မန္ဒရတောင်၌ နေထိုင်သော မြတ်နိုးအပ်သည့် အာရျာမယ်တော်၊ သင့်အား နမස්ကာရပါ၏။ သင်သည် ကုမာရီ၊ ကာလီ၊ ကာပါလီ၊ ကပီလာ၊ ကృష్ణပိင်္ဂလာ ဟူသော နာမများဖြင့် ထင်ရှား၏။ ထပ်တလဲလဲ ဦးညွှတ်ပူဇော်ပါ၏»။

Word by Word

अर्जुनःArjuna

उवाचsaid

नमःsalutation

तेto you

सिद्धसेनानिO leader of the hosts of Siddhas

आर्येO noble lady

मन्दरवासिनिO dweller of Mandara (mountain)

कुमारिO maiden

कालिO Kali

कापालिO Kapali (skull-bearing one)

कपिलेO tawny one

कृष्णपिङ्गलेO dark-tawny one

Speaker

अजुन उवाच

Characters & Entities

Arjuna

Goddess (Devī/Durgā in multi-named forms: Kumārī, Kālī, Kāpālī, Kapilā, Kṛṣṇapiṅgalā)

Siddhas

Mount Mandara (Mandarācala)

Character Dynamics

Dharma Sankata (Moral Dilemma)

War Context

Verse Rasa (Emotional Essence)

Philosophical Teaching

Political Layer

Geographic Context

Meter (Chandas)

Sandhi Notes

Educational Q&A

What is the core teaching?

The verse models devotional humility and ethical reliance on divine strength: before entering a morally fraught war, Arjuna seeks inner steadiness and protection by honoring the Goddess in her many aspects—both fierce against wrongdoing and compassionate toward devotees.

What is happening in the narrative?

Arjuna offers a formal salutation (stuti) to the Goddess, addressing her as the leader of Siddhas and a dweller on Mount Mandara, and reciting her epithets (Kumārī, Kālī, Kāpālī, Kapilā, Kṛṣṇapiṅgalā) as part of a prayer for support in the coming battle.