Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 10.76.24
Blended reading (Sanskrit + English inline)
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amuhyat
—
became bewildered
Imperfect of √muh. Same root as mūḍha (verse 4). The asura who was already mūḍha at the start of the chapter now becomes amuhyat in the middle — moha intensifies under bhakta-pressure rather than dissolving.
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agni-arka-saṁsparśaiḥ
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whose contact was like fire and the sun
Contiguous join (agni + arka + saṁsparśaiḥ). Two of the Bhāgavata's stock images for Bhagavān — agni and sūrya. Pradyumna's arrows literally carry the divine taijasa: fire to the touch, sun to the eye.
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āśī-viṣa
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of the venom of a snake
Contiguous join (āśī + viṣa). Āśī-viṣa — 'fanged-poison,' a venomous serpent. Recall Kāliya in SB 10.16: serpents serve the Lord. Even snake-venom is, in Bhāgavata economy, a tool Bhagavān can wield.
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durāsadaiḥ
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intolerable
duḥ + ā + √sad (same word used for Saubha itself in verse 8). The asura who built durāsada now meets durāsada — what he weaponized is now weaponized against him. Karmic mirroring at the level of vocabulary.
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pura-anīkaḥ
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whose aerial city and army
Contiguous join (pura + anīkaḥ). Anīka — army. Pura — city. Śālva is named here by his two extensions; the verse refuses to grant him a self apart from his hardware.
Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī explains that the arrows of the Yadu commanders burned like fire, struck simultaneously from all sides like the sun’s rays, and, like snake venom, were lethal by a single touch.
Both the flying city of saubha and the troops of Salva were afflicted by arrows which had the touch of fire and the sun, and were intolerable like snake venom, shot by the Yadavas. Thus he became bewildered.
The arrows were like fire because they burned like fire. They were like the sun because they heated everywhere like the sun’s rays.
The arrows seemed to touch everything at once, like rays of the sun.
- Where am I underestimating what devotional response can accomplish?
- How does sustained bhakti become its own kind of fire and venom for delusion?
Like a thief who feels the householder's stick for the first time and realizes the courtyard has a master after all, Śālva is bewildered when the Yadu arrows actually find him. Asuric confidence collapses at first solid contact with bhakta-tejas.
My note
Source: vedabase.io