भारद्वाजानिलोद्धूतः शरधारासहस्रवान् ॥
अभ्यवर्षन् महारौद्रः पाण्डुसेनाग्निम् उद्धतम् ॥
समुद्रम् इव घर्मान्ते विवान् घोरो महानिलः ॥
व्यक्षोभयद् अनीकानि पाण्डवानां द्विजोत्तमः ॥
bhāradvājāniloddhūtaḥ śaradhārāsahasravān ||
abhyavarṣan mahāraudraḥ pāṇḍusenāgnim uddhatam ||
samudram iva gharmānte vivān ghoro mahānilaḥ ||
vyakṣobhayad anīkāni pāṇḍavānāṃ dvijottamaḥ ||
Stirred up by the wind that was Bharadvaja's son, with thousands of streams of arrows, the terrible [cloud] poured down as rain upon the blazing fire of Pandu's army. Like a terrible great wind blowing at the end of the heat upon the ocean, the foremost of the twice-born [Drona] stirred up the ranks of the Pandavas.
6a9245a576d1 · published Jul 19, 2026, 3:45:02 PM UTC
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Drona appears as both cloud and wind, quenching 'pāṇḍusenāgnim,' the fire that is the army of the Pandavas. The metaphors of the elements pass one into another: fire, wind, cloud, ocean. It is telling that the greatest of warriors is likened not to a man but to the forces of nature. The verse teaches that in the heat of slaughter a man becomes, as it were, an element itself: Drona is cloud and gale, the Pandavas are fire and ocean; and this shifting of images shows that in the storm of war the person dissolves into the impersonal might of destruction that sweeps everyone along.