Mahabharata (Gita Press) 7.21.37 - Drona Parva, Adhyaya 21, Shloka 37

द्रोणविक्रमदर्शनम् / The Display of Droṇa’s Onslaught and the Debate on Pāṇḍava Regrouping

Devanagari script

द्रोणस्तु पाण्डवानीके चकार कदनं महत्‌ | यथा दैत्यगणे विष्णु: सुरासुरनमस्कृत:

Transliteration

droṇas tu pāṇḍavānīke cakāra kadanaṃ mahat | yathā daityagaṇe viṣṇuḥ surāsuranamaskṛtaḥ ||

Translation

သဉ္ဇယက ပြောသည်။ ဒြောဏာသည် ပाण्डဝတပ်တွင် အကြီးအကျယ် သတ်ဖြတ်မှုကို ဖြစ်စေ၏။ ထိုသည်ကား ဒေဝနှင့် အသူရတို့ကပါ ဂုဏ်ပြုနမസ്കာရသော ဗိဿနုဘုရားသည် ဒာနဝတို့၏ တပ်စုအပေါ် ကြောက်မက်ဖွယ် ဖျက်ဆီးသကဲ့သို့ပင် ဖြစ်၏။

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Word by Word

• द्रोणः: Drona
• द्रोणः: Karta
• Type: Noun
• Root: द्रोण
• Form: Masculine, Nominative, Singular

• तु: but/indeed
• Type: Indeclinable
• Root: तु

• पाण्डवानीके: in the Pandavas' army
• पाण्डवानीके: Adhikarana
• Type: Noun
• Root: पाण्डव-अनीक
• Form: Neuter, Locative, Singular

• चकार: did/made
• Type: Verb
• Root: कृ
• Form: Perfect (Liṭ), 3rd, Singular

• कदनम्: slaughter/harrying
• कदनम्: Karma
• Type: Noun
• Root: कदन
• Form: Neuter, Accusative, Singular

• महत्: great
• Type: Adjective
• Root: महत्
• Form: Neuter, Accusative, Singular

• यथा: as/just as
• Type: Indeclinable
• Root: यथा

• दैत्यगणे: among the host of Daityas
• दैत्यगणे: Adhikarana
• Type: Noun
• Root: दैत्य-गण
• Form: Masculine, Locative, Singular

• विष्णुः: Vishnu
• विष्णुः: Karta
• Type: Noun
• Root: विष्णु
• Form: Masculine, Nominative, Singular

• सुरासुरनमस्कृतः: revered by gods and asuras
• Type: Adjective
• Root: सुर-असुर-नमस्कृत
• Form: Masculine, Nominative, Singular

Speaker

संजय उवाच

Characters & Entities

• Sañjaya
• Droṇa (Droṇācārya)
• Pāṇḍavas (Pāṇḍava army)
• Viṣṇu
• Daityas
• Suras (gods)
• Asuras (demons)

Educational Q&A

What is the core teaching?

The verse highlights how war magnifies capability into devastation: a revered teacher like Droṇa becomes a force of ruin when bound to battlefield duty. The ethical tension is implicit—skill and righteousness are not identical, and even ‘duty’ can entail grievous harm.

What is happening in the narrative?

Sañjaya reports to Dhṛtarāṣṭra that Droṇa is cutting down the Pāṇḍava forces on the battlefield. To convey the scale, he compares Droṇa’s onslaught to Viṣṇu’s terrifying destruction of the Daityas, despite being honored by both gods and demons.