• samekhale — on the level fighting grounds
  Locative. Samekhala — flat, prepared ground for combat. Vedic duels are not improvised; the ground itself is ritual space.
• vajra-kalpābhyām — like lightning bolts
  Compound instrumental dual. Vajra-kalpa — 'thunderbolt-equivalent'. Both maces strike like Indra's vajra; the duel is at the upper limit of human martial capacity.
• raṇa-durmadau — driven to mad fury by combat
  Compound nominative dual. Durmada — intoxicated, frenzied. Combat itself is the intoxicant. The verse describes the warrior's trance state.

• Where am I treating a moral struggle as stylized when it requires my whole effort?
• What fight in my life have I been only half-fighting?

Two clouds collide and lightning sounds. Two heroes with thunderbolt-like maces collide and the very ground is the cloud. The verse begins the long combat — twenty-seven days, Mahābhārata says — though the Bhāgavatam will compress.