Mahabharata (Gita Press) 7.21.24 - Drona Parva, Adhyaya 21, Shloka 24
द्रोणविक्रमदर्शनम् / The Display of Droṇa’s Onslaught and the Debate on Pāṇḍava Regrouping
ततो युधिष्टिरं प्रेप्सुराचार्य: शत्रुपूगहा । व्यधमत् तान्यनीकानि तूलराशिमिवानल:
tato yudhiṣṭhiraṃ prepsur ācāryaḥ śatrupūgahā | vyadhamat tāny anīkāni tūlarāśim ivānalaḥ ||
သဉ္ဇယက ပြောသည်– ထို့နောက် ရန်သူအစုအဝေးများကို ဖျက်ဆီးနိုင်သော ဆရာကြီး ဒြောဏသည် ယုဓိဋ္ဌိရကို ဖမ်းဆီးလိုသဖြင့် ထိုစစ်တန်းဖွဲ့စည်းမှုများကို မီးက ဝါဂွမ်းအစုကို လောင်ကျွမ်းသကဲ့သို့ ချက်ချင်း ချေမှုန်းပစ်하였다။
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse highlights the moral strain of warfare: when a commander fixates on a strategic goal (capturing Yudhiṣṭhira), the means can become massively destructive. The cotton-and-fire simile emphasizes how quickly and indiscriminately violence can spread once unleashed, prompting reflection on proportionality and responsibility even amid duty-bound combat.
Droṇa advances with the intent to seize Yudhiṣṭhira. To reach him, he breaks through and annihilates the intervening troop-formations, overwhelming them with the speed and totality likened to fire burning a pile of cotton.
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