सत्यश्रवसि चाक्षिप्ते त्वरमाणा महारथाः ॥
प्रगृह्य विपुलं शस्त्रम् अभिमन्युम् उपाद्रवन् ॥
अहं पूर्वम् अहं पूर्वम् इति क्षत्रियपुंगवाः ॥
स्पर्धमानाः समाजग्मुर् जिघांसन्तो ऽर्जुनात्मजम् ॥
क्षत्रियाणाम् अनीकानि प्रद्रुतान्य् अभिधावताम् ॥
जग्रास तिमिर् आसाद्य क्षुद्रमत्स्यान् इवार्णवे ॥
satyaśravasi cākṣipte tvaramāṇā mahārathāḥ ||
pragṛhya vipulaṃ śastram abhimanyum upādravan ||
ahaṃ pūrvam ahaṃ pūrvam iti kṣatriyapuṃgavāḥ ||
spardhamānāḥ samājagmur jighāṃsanto 'rjunātmajam ||
kṣatriyāṇām anīkāni pradrutāny abhidhāvatām ||
jagrāsa timir āsādya kṣudramatsyān ivārṇave ||
When Satyashravas had been overtaken, the great chariot-warriors, hurriedly seizing their vast weapons, charged at Abhimanyu. "I first! I first!" — thus the kshatriya-warriors, rivaling one another, rushed together, eager to slay the son of Arjuna. The ranks of kshatriyas, charging and surging forward, he swallowed, as a monstrous whale swallows the small fish it meets in the sea.
5e927e94adb9 · प्रकाशित 19 जुल॰ 2026, 3:30:03 pm UTC
उपलब्ध भाषाएँRUENश्लोक बदलें इन कुंजियों से
The warriors quarrel over "I first!" — over who will be the first to strike down the youth, as though for honor and spoil — and this arrogant haste destroys them: they are "swallowed like small fish by a whale." Thus is shown the futility of rivalry in an unworthy deed: those rushing to outdo one another in killing a child only find their own destruction the sooner. It is significant that their multitude is to the youth what minnows are to a whale. The verse teaches that vain rivalry for precedence in a wrongful deed leads only to the swifter ruin of the contenders; that a countless multitude is as nothing before a single great power, as trifles before a whale; and that the pride which drives one to cry "I first!" is blind to the fact that here precedence means only precedence in death.