तान् निवार्यार्जुनिर् बाणैः क्राथपुत्रम् अथार्दयत् ॥
शरौघेणाप्रमेयेण त्वरमाणो जिघांसया ॥
सधनुर्बाणकेयूरौ बाहू समुकुटं शिरः ॥
छत्रं ध्वजं नियन्तारम् अश्वांश् चास्य न्यपातयत् ॥
कुलशीलश्रुतबलैः कीर्त्या चास्त्रबलेन च ॥
युक्ते तस्मिन् हते वीराः प्रायशो विमुखाभवन् ॥
tān nivāryārjunir bāṇaiḥ krāthaputram athārdayat ||
śaraugheṇāprameyeṇa tvaramāṇo jighāṃsayā ||
sadhanurbāṇakeyūrau bāhū samukuṭaṃ śiraḥ ||
chatraṃ dhvajaṃ niyantāram aśvāṃś cāsya nyapātayat ||
kulaśīlaśrutabalaiḥ kīrtyā cāstrabalena ca ||
yukte tasmin hate vīrāḥ prāyaśo vimukhābhavan ||
Having beaten them off with arrows, the son of Arjuna then harassed the son of Kratha with a countless torrent of arrows, swiftly, with eagerness to slay. Both his arms — with bow, arrows and bracelets — his head with its diadem, his parasol, banner, charioteer, and horses, he felled to the ground. When that one, endowed with lineage, character, learning, strength, fame, and might of arms, was struck down, the warriors, almost all of them, turned back in flight.
d06acfff1422 · published Jul 19, 2026, 3:30:04 PM UTC
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The son of Kratha is described in the fullness of his virtues — lineage, character, learning, strength, fame, skill — and none of it saves him from the boy's arrow. Here it is shown that neither nobility of birth nor talent turns aside the appointed hour: death makes all equal, and the accomplished man falls just as the ordinary one does. It is notable that here too the tradition honors the fallen with a list of his merits. The verse teaches that a fullness of gifts — of lineage, of mind, of fame — is no guarantee of long life, for before death all are equal; that the death of the most worthy is especially bitter, yet it too is in the order of things; and that the tradition, crowning the fallen with an enumeration of his perfections at the very moment of death, reminds us: nothing a man prides himself on and adorns himself with will postpone his hour, and all the dearer, then, should be what does not pass away — not lineage, fame, or strength, but that imperishable thing which death has no power to take.