Shloka 3536

Chapter 12: Arjuna’s suppression of the Saṃśaptakas and duel with Aśvatthāmā

Drauṇi

Devanagari script

निपपात महेष्वासो वज्जाहत इवाचल: । राजन! इस प्रकार महायुद्धमें दो टुकड़ोंमें कटा हुआ कवचसहित महाथनुर्धर केकयराज वच्जके मारे हुए पर्वतके समान गिर पड़ा

Transliteration

nipapāta maheṣvāso vajrāhata ivācalaḥ | rājan! iti prakāraṃ mahāyuddhe dvi-ṭukḍeṣu chinnaḥ kavaca-sahitaḥ mahā-dhanurdharaḥ kekaya-rājaḥ vajrake māritaḥ parvata iva nipapāta |

Translation

သဉ္ဇယက ပြောသည်—«အရှင်မင်းကြီး၊ ထိုမဟာစစ်ပွဲအတွင်း၌ မြားပစ်အင်အားကြီးသော ကေကယမင်းသည် သံချပ်ကာဝတ်ဆင်လျက်ပင် နှစ်ပိုင်းခွဲကတ်ခံရကာ မိုးကြိုးထိသကဲ့သို့ တောင်တစ်လုံးကျသွားသကဲ့သို့ လဲကျသွား၏»။

Word by Word

• निपपात: fell down
• Type: Verb
• Root: पत् (नि + पत्)
• Form: लिट् (Perfect), 3, singular, Parasmaipada

• महेष्वासः: the great archer
• महेष्वासः: Karta
• Type: Noun
• Root: महेष्वास (महान् + इष्वास)
• Form: masculine, nominative, singular

• वज्राहतः: struck by a thunderbolt
• Type: Adjective
• Root: वज्राहत (वज्र + आहत)
• Form: masculine, nominative, singular

• इव: like/as
• Type: Indeclinable
• Root: इव

• अचलः: a mountain
• Type: Noun
• Root: अचल
• Form: masculine, nominative, singular

Speaker

संजय उवाच

Characters & Entities

• Sañjaya
• Dhṛtarāṣṭra (implied by 'rājan')
• Kekaya king
• armor (kavaca)
• thunderbolt (vajra)
• mountain (acala/parvata)
• great battle (mahāyuddha)

Educational Q&A

What is the core teaching?

The verse highlights the stark impermanence of martial glory: even a heavily armored, renowned archer can be destroyed in an instant. Ethically, it functions as a sobering reminder of the cost of war and the fragility of embodied power, even when exercised under the banner of kṣatriya-dharma.

What is happening in the narrative?

Sañjaya reports to King Dhṛtarāṣṭra that, amid the great battle, the Kekaya king—an eminent bowman—has been cut into two and falls to the ground, compared to a mountain felled by a thunderbolt.