स भिन्नमर्मा स्रस्ताङ्गः प्रभ्रष्टमुकुटाङ्गदः ॥
पपाताभिमुखः शूरो यन्त्रमुक्त इव ध्वजः ॥
गिरेः शिखरजः श्रीमान् सुशाखः सुप्रतिष्ठितः ॥
निर्भग्न इव वातेन कर्णिकारो हिमात्यये ॥
शेते स्म निहतो भूमौ काम्बोजास्तरणोचितः ॥
सुदर्शनीयस् ताम्राक्षः कर्णिना स सुदक्षिणः ॥
पुत्रः काम्बोजराजस्य पार्थेन विनिपातितः ॥
sa bhinnamarmā srastāṅgaḥ prabhraṣṭamukuṭāṅgadaḥ ||
papātābhimukhaḥ śūro yantramukta iva dhvajaḥ ||
gireḥ śikharajaḥ śrīmān suśākhaḥ supratiṣṭhitaḥ ||
nirbhagna iva vātena karṇikāro himātyaye ||
śete sma nihato bhūmau kāmbojāstaraṇocitaḥ ||
sudarśanīyas tāmrākṣaḥ karṇinā sa sudakṣiṇaḥ ||
putraḥ kāmbojarājasya pārthena vinipātitaḥ ||
He, with his vitals torn, limbs gone slack, crown and armlets fallen away, fell face forward, the hero, like a banner torn from its device. Like a karnikara grown on a mountain peak, splendid, richly branched, firmly rooted, broken by the wind at winter's end — so he lay slain upon the ground, that Sudakshina, accustomed to Kambojan coverings, lovely to behold, copper-eyed, brought down by a karni arrow, son of the king of the Kambojas, felled by Partha.
e8645a9cbb0d · published Jul 19, 2026, 3:45:02 PM UTC
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Once more the fallen warrior is likened to a tree — "karṇikāraḥ… nirbhagnaḥ vātena," the flowering karnikara broken by the wind. The image of sorrowful beauty crowns the death of a valiant man. "Sudarśanīyaḥ tāmrākṣaḥ," "fair to see, copper-eyed" — the poet mourns a youthful beauty fallen in vain. It is telling that the poem sends off even the enemy with sorrow, not with triumph. The verse teaches compassion for the fallen of every side: the death of a beautiful young man, even on the side of untruth, is a loss worthy of grief; and by likening him to a broken flowering tree, the poem bids us see in every fallen man not an enemy but a ruined beauty of life.