Mahabharata 11.21.8 — Stree Parva, Adhyaya 21, Shloka 8

अध्याय २१ — गान्धार्या वैकर्तनदर्शनम्

Gāndhārī’s Viewing of Vaikartana/Karṇa

Devanagari script

अनाधुृष्य: परैर्युद्धे शत्रुभिर्मघवानिव । युगान्ताग्निरिवार्चिष्मान्‌ हिमवानिव निश्चल:ः

Transliteration

anādṛṣyaḥ parair yuddhe śatrubhir maghavān iva | yugāntāgnir ivārciṣmān himavān iva niścalaḥ ||

Translation

ဝိုင်ရှမ္ပာယန မိန့်ကြားသည်– စစ်တွင် သူသည် အခြားသူတို့အတွက် မထိခိုက်နိုင်သူဖြစ်၍၊ ရန်သူတို့အပေါ် မဃဝန် (အိန္ဒြာ) ကဲ့သို့ မအနိုင်ယူနိုင်လောက်အောင် ဖြစ်သည်။ ကာလအဆုံးမီးကဲ့သို့ တောက်လောင်၍၊ ဟိမဝန် (ဟိမလယ) ကဲ့သို့ မလှုပ်မယှက် တည်ကြည်သည်။ ထိုသူရဲကောင်း ကර්ဏသည်—ဓြတရာෂ္ဌရ၏သား ဒုရ്യೋಧနအတွက် ခိုလှုံရာဖြစ်လာသူ—ယခုမူ မုန်တိုင်းက ချိုးကျသကဲ့သို့ သစ်ပင်တစ်ပင်လို မြေပေါ်တွင် လဲကျသေဆုံးနေပြီ။

Word by Word

• अनाधृष्यः: unassailable, unconquerable
• अनाधृष्यः: Karta
• Type: Adjective
• Root: अनाधृष्य
• Form: Masculine, Nominative, Singular

• परैः: by others (by opponents)
• परैः: Karana
• Type: Noun/Adjective
• Root: पर
• Form: Masculine, Instrumental, Plural

• युद्धे: in battle
• युद्धे: Adhikarana
• Type: Noun
• Root: युद्ध
• Form: Neuter, Locative, Singular

• शत्रुभिः: by enemies
• शत्रुभिः: Karana
• Type: Noun
• Root: शत्रु
• Form: Masculine, Instrumental, Plural

• मघवता: by Maghavat (Indra); like Indra
• मघवता: Karana
• Type: Noun (Proper epithet)
• Root: मघवत्
• Form: Masculine, Instrumental, Singular

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

• युगान्त: end of an age (world-ending time)
• Type: Noun
• Root: युगान्त
• Form: Masculine, Stem (compound member)

• अग्निः: fire
• अग्निः: Karta
• Type: Noun
• Root: अग्नि
• Form: Masculine, Nominative, Singular

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

• अर्चिष्मान्: flaming, radiant
• अर्चिष्मान्: Karta
• Type: Adjective
• Root: अर्चिष्मत्
• Form: Masculine, Nominative, Singular

• हिमवान्: Himavat (the Himalaya)
• हिमवान्: Karta
• Type: Noun (Proper name)
• Root: हिमवत्
• Form: Masculine, Nominative, Singular

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

• निश्चलः: immovable, steady
• निश्चलः: Karta
• Type: Adjective
• Root: निश्चल
• Form: Masculine, Nominative, Singular

• माधव: O Mādhava (Krishna)
• Type: Noun (Vocative, proper epithet)
• Root: माधव
• Form: Masculine, Vocative, Singular

Speaker

वैशम्पायन उवाच

Characters & Entities

• Vaiśampāyana
• Indra (Maghavān)
• Himavān (Himalaya)
• Karṇa
• Dhṛtarāṣṭra
• Duryodhana

Educational Q&A

What is the core teaching?

The verse highlights the impermanence of strength and status: even one who seems invincible and steadfast can fall. Ethically, it intensifies the Strī-parvan mood of lamentation and reflection—war consumes protectors and protected alike, forcing survivors to confront the moral cost of ambition and enmity.

What is happening in the narrative?

Vaiśampāyana describes Karṇa’s former battlefield might through grand similes (Indra-like, end-of-age fire, Himalaya-like) and then states the reversal: Karṇa, who served as Duryodhana’s chief refuge and support, has been slain and lies fallen like a storm-toppled tree.