दिशो विचरतस् तस्य सर्वाश् च प्रदिशस् तथा ॥
रणे ऽभिमन्योः क्रुद्धस्य रूपम् अन्तरधीयत ॥
काञ्चनं यद् यद् अस्यासीद् वर्म चाभरणानि च ॥
धनुषश् च शराणां च तद् अपश्याम केवलम् ॥
तं तदा नाशकत् कश् चिच् चक्षुर्भ्याम् अभिवीक्षितुम् ॥
आददानं शरैर् योधान् मध्ये सूर्यम् इव स्थितम् ॥
diśo vicaratas tasya sarvāś ca pradiśas tathā ||
raṇe 'bhimanyoḥ kruddhasya rūpam antaradhīyata ||
kāñcanaṃ yad yad asyāsīd varma cābharaṇāni ca ||
dhanuṣaś ca śarāṇāṃ ca tad apaśyāma kevalam ||
taṃ tadā nāśakat kaś cic cakṣurbhyām abhivīkṣitum ||
ādadānaṃ śarair yodhān madhye sūryam iva sthitam ||
As he ranged through all the directions and intermediate directions in the battle, the form of the enraged Abhimanyu became invisible. All that was golden about him — his armor, his ornaments, his bow, and his arrows — that alone we saw. Him then no one could gaze upon with his eyes, taking the lives of warriors with his arrows, abiding in the midst of the host like the sun.
f1c24c222586 · published Jul 19, 2026, 3:30:03 PM UTC
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The boy becomes invisible — only the gold of his armor and the gleam of his bow betray him, and "no one could gaze upon him with his eyes," as upon the sun. Thus the tradition again crowns him with the image of a luminary one cannot look at directly: his valor has reached a blinding limit. It is significant that in his very invisibility lies the highest visibility of glory. The verse teaches that greatness at its limit becomes like the sun — dazzling, upon which the eye cannot be raised; that true valor, having hidden its very form behind the brilliance of its deeds, thereby shows itself all the brighter; and that the tradition, leaving us with the image of the boy-sun, upon whom one cannot look, raises his glory to its zenith — a moment before this sun, by an inexorable law, begins to decline toward its swift and sorrowful sunset.