Mahabharata 7.141.676 — Drona Parva, Adhyaya 141, Shloka 676

Adhyāya 141 — Night duels: Śaineya and Bhūriśravas; Droṇi and Ghaṭotkaca; Bhīma and Duryodhana

Devanagari script

अस्यतः: सूतपुत्रस्य मित्रार्थे चित्रयोधिन: । मित्रके हितके लिये विचित्र युद्ध करनेवाले तथा बाणप्रहारमें तत्पर सूतपत्र कर्णके तीखे बाणोंसे दस टुकड़ोंमें कटकर वह शक्ति धरतीपर गिर पड़ी

Transliteration

sañjaya uvāca | asyataḥ sūtaputrasya mitrārthe citrayodhinaḥ | mitrake hitake liye vicitra yuddha karanevāle tathā bāṇaprahārameṃ tatpara sūtaputra karṇake tīkṣṇa bāṇoṃse daśa ṭukṛoṃmeṃ kaṭakara sā śakti dhartīpara gira paṛī |

Translation

သဉ္ဇယက ပြောသည်။ မိတ်ဆွေ၏အကျိုးအတွက် တောက်ပသောစွမ်းရည်ဖြင့် တိုက်ခိုက်နေသော ရထားမောင်းသား၏သား ကာဏ္ဏသည် မြားပစ်ရန် အမြဲတမ်းအာရုံစိုက်လျက်၊ မိမိ၏ ထက်မြက်သော မြားများဖြင့် ထိုလှံကို အပိုင်းဆယ်ပိုင်း ခွဲကွဲအောင် ချိုးဖျက်၍ မြေပြင်ပေါ်သို့ ကျစေ하였다။

Word by Word

• अस्यतः: of (him) who was hurling/throwing
• अस्यतः: Karta
• Type: Verb
• Root: अस्यत् (√अस्/अस्? actually from √अस् 'to throw' = √अस्/अस्य् in epic usage; present participle stem अस्यत्)
• Form: वर्तमान कृदन्त (शतृ), पुंलिङ्ग, षष्ठी, एकवचन

• सूतपुत्रस्य: of the charioteer’s son (Karna)
• सूतपुत्रस्य: Karta
• Type: Noun
• Root: सूतपुत्र
• Form: पुंलिङ्ग, षष्ठी, एकवचन

• मित्रार्थे: for a friend’s sake / in the cause of a friend
• मित्रार्थे: Adhikarana
• Type: Noun
• Root: मित्रार्थ
• Form: पुंलिङ्ग, सप्तमी, एकवचन

• चित्रयोधिनः: of the wondrous/varied fighter
• चित्रयोधिनः: Karta
• Type: Adjective
• Root: चित्रयोधिन्
• Form: पुंलिङ्ग, षष्ठी, एकवचन

Speaker

संजय उवाच

Characters & Entities

• Sanjaya
• Karna
• śakti (spear/weapon)
• earth (ground)

Educational Q&A

What is the core teaching?

The verse highlights loyalty as a powerful motivating virtue in human conduct—Karna fights ‘for his friend’s sake’—yet it also shows how such loyalty, when tied to an unrighteous cause, can deepen the destructiveness of war and complicate dharma.

What is happening in the narrative?

Sanjaya describes Karna, fighting brilliantly and focused on arrow-strikes, cutting a spear (śakti) into ten pieces with sharp arrows so that it drops to the ground.