Shloka 24

Devanagari script

ततो हताश्वादवरुह् याना- दादाय चर्मामलरुक्मचन्द्रम्‌ । आकाशसंकाशमसिं प्रगृहम दोधूयमान: खगवच्चचार,तत्पश्चात्‌ अश्वहीन रथसे उतरकर स्वर्णमय निर्मल चन्द्राकार चिह्नोंसे युक्त ढाल और आकाशके समान स्वच्छ तलवार ले उसे घुमाते हुए नकुल एक पक्षीके समान विचरने लगे

Transliteration

tato hatāśvād avaruhya yānād ādāya carmāmalarukmacandram | ākāśasaṅkāśam asiṁ pragṛhya dodhūyamānaḥ khagavac cacāra ||

Translation

သဉ္ဇယက ပြောသည်– ထို့နောက် မြင်းများ သတ်ဖြတ်ခံရသဖြင့် သူသည် ရထားမှ ဆင်းလေ၏။ ရွှေရောင် လကဲ့သို့ အမှတ်အသားပါသော သန့်ရှင်းတောက်ပသော ဒိုင်းကိုယူ၍ ကောင်းကင်ကဲ့သို့ ကြည်လင်တောက်ပသော ဓားကို ကိုင်ကာ လှည့်ဝှေ့ရင်း ငှက်တစ်ကောင်ကဲ့သို့ လှုပ်ရှားလေ၏။

Word by Word

ततःthen, thereafter

हताश्वात्from the horse-less (chariot)

अवरुह्यhaving descended

आनात्from the vehicle/chariot

आदायhaving taken

चर्मshield (leather)

अमलspotless, pure

रुक्मचन्द्रम्golden moon(-emblem)

आकाशसंकाशम्sky-like, resembling the sky

असिम्sword

प्रगृह्यhaving grasped

दोधूयमानःwhirling/shaking repeatedly

खगवत्like a bird

चचारmoved about, roamed

Speaker

संजय उवाच

Characters & Entities

Sañjaya

Nakula

chariot (yāna/ratha)

horses

shield (carma) with golden moon emblem

sword (asi)

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 highlights steadfastness in kṣatriya-dharma: even after losing the chariot’s support (horses), a warrior should keep composure, adapt, and continue to act with courage and competence rather than collapse into fear or helplessness.

What is happening in the narrative?

After his horses are killed, Nakula dismounts, takes up a clean shield with a golden moon emblem and a sky-bright sword, and moves about brandishing the blade—described poetically as roaming like a bird.