Chapter 1 · Verse 13·Spoken by Sanjaya
ततः शङ्खाश्च भेर्यश्च पणवानकगोमुखाः। सहसैवाभ्यहन्यन्त स शब्दस्तुमुलोऽभवत्
tataḥ śhaṅkhāśhcha bheryaśhcha paṇavānaka-gomukhāḥ sahasaivābhyahanyanta sa śhabdastumulo ’bhavat
Then, all at once, conches, kettledrums, tabors, drums, and cow-horns blared forth. The sound was overwhelming.
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Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
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Convergence
his verse is Sanjaya's report of what happened the instant Bhishma blew his conch in the previous verse. The word 'tatah' means 'then' or 'thereupon,' so the verse follows directly on Bhishma's act. In answer, the rest of the Kaurava instruments broke out all at once. Sanjaya names them: shankhas (conches), bheris (large kettle-drums), and the panava, anaka, and gomukha (smaller drums and a horn). The instruments 'were struck,' that is, were sounded, 'sahasa,' suddenly, all in the same moment. The point most commentators stress is the simultaneity: this was not instruments coming in one by one but a single massed burst of sound triggered by Bhishma's signal.
Braided from 11 commentators
Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Vedānta Deśika · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrī Bhāskara · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Sant Jñāneśvar · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
The instruments sounded in response to Bhishma specifically, and the commentators connect this to the chain of command on the Kaurava side. Bhishma was the commander, and his conch had been blown in the previous verse; the followers and the allied kings took their cue from him. So after Bhishma's act the conches and the rest were sounded by his men. The picture is of a leader giving the signal and an army answering it as one body.
Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Swami Ramsukhdas
Everyone agrees on the result Sanjaya names in the second line: 'sa shabdas tumulo 'bhavat,' that sound became tumultuous. 'Tumula' means uproarious, confused, overwhelming. The commentators gloss it plainly as great or huge. The noise rose from the whole mass of instruments at once, which is why it was so vast. One commentator adds the vivid touch that the sound saturated all four directions, filling the entire field.
Braided from 10 commentators
Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Vedānta Deśika · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrī Bhāskara · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Sant Jñāneśvar · Lokmanya Tilak
Several commentators read an emotional charge into the tumult rather than treating it as mere noise. The massed sound was frightening. One reads it as making fear manifest for the enemy, that is, the blast was meant to intimidate the opposing side. Another expands this into a cosmic terror: the din was so dreadful that even the bold feared the world was ending, elephants in rut grew uncontrollable, and the gods, even Brahma, grew nervous that the universe had reached its end. For these readers the verse is not just stage-setting; it conveys the overwhelming, almost world-shaking force of an army's war-cry.
Śrī Ānandagiri · Sant Jñāneśvar
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
This reading draws a pointed contrast that the plain words do not state. Granting that the sound was tumultuous and great, this commentator insists it caused no agitation whatsoever among the Pandavas. The massed Kaurava blast, for all its terror, left the other side unshaken. On this view the verse already hints at the steadiness of the Pandava camp, setting up the contrast with the Pandava conches that sound in the verses to follow.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Advaita Vedānta
These commentators pause on the grammar of the verb 'abhyahanyanta' ('were struck'). They identify it as a karma-kartri construction, sometimes called passive-as-agent: a passive form used where we might expect an active sense, so that the instruments are spoken of as 'being struck' while the force is really that of the players striking them. The note is technical, meant to settle exactly how the sentence is built rather than to add new doctrine.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha
Viśiṣṭādvaita
This commentator works on a participle in the causal sense, glossing it by Panini's grammatical rule as 'producing,' that is, 'intending to produce.' The emphasis falls on intention: the instruments were sounded with the aim of producing the great clamour. Like the grammatical note of other commentators, this is a precise reading of the verb's form, here drawing out a purposive shade, before affirming with everyone else that the clamour was tumultuous.
Vedānta Deśika
Śuddhādvaita
These commentators frame the burst of sound as a 'cosmic sound' or a responding cosmic sound. Where most readers describe the instruments at the level of the battlefield, this language lifts the moment to a larger key, presenting the massed blare as something more than an ordinary martial signal. The instruments named and the tumult described are the same; the distinctive note is the cosmic register in which the sound is heard.
Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama
Modern
This commentator supplies the narrative motive behind the simultaneous blast. Bhishma had not blown his conch to declare war but only to please Duryodhana; the Kaurava army, however, took his conch-blast as the announcement that the war had begun. That is why, the moment Bhishma blew, all the conches and other instruments sounded together. This commentator also identifies each instrument in concrete detail, explaining what the shankha, bheri, panava, anaka, and gomukha actually were, how they were made, and where they were used, including in temple worship and royal courts.
Swami Ramsukhdas
A Seeker Asks
Why does a sacred text spend a whole verse simply cataloguing battlefield instruments and the noise they made?
On the surface the verse is exactly what it looks like: Sanjaya faithfully reporting the scene to the blind king Dhritarashtra, telling him that the instant Bhishma sounded his conch the whole Kaurava array answered in one massed burst, and that the noise was overwhelming. The detail is doing real narrative work. It conveys the simultaneity and the sheer scale of the army's response, the chain of command running from the commander to his followers, and the terror such a sound carries.
Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Lokmanya Tilak
Read with the commentators, the catalogue is not flat description but charged with feeling and meaning. One reader hears in the tumult a fear deliberately aimed at the enemy; another expands it into a near-cosmic dread, as if the world itself were ending and even the gods grew anxious. So the verse is setting an emotional pitch, not just listing hardware.
Śrī Ānandagiri · Sant Jñāneśvar
And the very loudness sets up a contrast the next verses will use. One commentator points out that for all its tumult the blast caused no agitation among the Pandavas, and another explains that the army had misread Bhishma's signal as the start of war in the first place. The huge Kaurava noise, then, is the backdrop against which the Pandava side, and its own conches, will be shown; the catalogue earns its place by preparing that contrast.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Swami Ramsukhdas
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