Chapter 90

“Sanjaya said, ‘Upon the fall of Sudakshina and of the heroic Srutayudha,O monarch, thy warriors, filled with wrath, rushed with speed at Partha.The Abhishahas, the Surasenas, the Sivis, the Vasatis began, O king, toscatter their arrowy showers on Dhananjaya. The son of Pandu thenconsumed by means of his arrows six hundred of them at once. Thereupon,those warriors, terrified, fled away like smaller animals from a tiger.Rallying, they once more surrounded Partha, who was slaying his foes andvanquishing them in battle. Dhananjaya then, with shafts sped fromGandiva, speedily felled the heads and arms of the combatants thusrushing upon him. Not an inch of the field of battle was unstrewn withfallen heads, and the flights of crows and vultures and ravens thathovered over the field seemed to form a cloudy canopy. Seeing their menthus exterminated, Srutayus and Achyutayus were both filled with wrath.And they continued to contend vigorously with Dhananjaya. Endued withgreat might, proud, heroic, of noble lineage, and possessed of strengthof arms, those two bowmen, O king, solicitous of winning great fame anddesirous, for the sake of thy son, to compass the destruction of Arjuna,quickly showered upon the latter their arrowy downpours at once from hisright and left. Those angry heroes, with a thousand straight shafts,covered Arjuna like two masses of clouds filling a lake. Then thatforemost of car-warriors viz., Srutayus filled with wrath, struckDhananjaya with a well-tempered lance. That crusher of foes viz., Arjuna,then, deeply pierced by his mighty foe, swooned away in that battle,stupefying Kesava also (by that act). Meanwhile, the mighty car-warriorAchyutayus forcibly struck the son of Pandu with a keen-pointed spear. Bythe act he seemed to pour an acid upon the wound of the high-souled sonof Pandu. Deeply pierced therewith, Partha supported himself by seizingthe flag-staff. Then a leonine shout was sent forth by all the troops, Omonarch, in the belief that Dhananjaya was deprived of life. And Krishnaalso was scorched with grief upon beholding Partha senseless. Then Kesavacomforted Dhananjaya with soothing words.. Then those foremost ofcar-warriors, (viz., Srutayus and Achyutayus), of true aim, pouring theirarrowy showers on all sides, in that battle, made Dhananjaya and Vasudevaof Vrishni’s race invisible with their car and car-wheels and Kuvaras,their steeds and flagstaff and banner. And all this seemed wonderful.Meanwhile, O Bharata, Vibhatsu slowly regained his senses, like one comeback from the very abode of the king of the dead. Beholding his car withKesava overwhelmed with arrows and seeing also those two antagonists ofhis staying before him like two blazing fires, the mighty car-warriorsPartha then invoked into existence the weapon named after Sakra. Fromthat weapon flowed thousands of straight shafts. And those shafts struckSrutayus and Achyutayus, those mighty bowmen. And the arrows shot by thelatter, pierced by those of Partha, coursed through the welkin. And theson of Pandu quickly baffling those arrows by the force of his ownarrows, began to career over the field, encountering mighty car-warriors.Meanwhile Srutayus and Achyutayus were, by Arjuna’s arrowy showers,deprived of their arms and heads. And they fell down on the earth, like acouple of tall trees broken by the wind. And the death of Srutayus andslaughter of Achyutayus created surprise equal to what men would feel atthe sight of the ocean becoming dry. Then slaying fifty car-warriorsamongst the followers of those two princes, Partha proceeded against theBharata army, slaying many foremost of warriors. Beholding both Srutayusand Achyutayus slain, their sons, those foremost of men, viz., Niyatayusand Dirghayus, O Bharata, both filled with rage, rushed against the sonof Kunti, scattering shafts of diverse kinds, and much pained by thecalamity that had happened to their sires. Arjuna, excited with rage, ina moment despatched them both towards Yama’s abode, by means of straightshafts. And those bulls among Kshatriyas (that were in the Kuru army)were unable to resist Partha who agitated the Dhartarashtra ranks, likean elephant agitating the waters of a lake filled with lotuses. Thenthousands of trained elephant-riders amongst the Angas, O monarch, filledwith rage, surrounded the son of Pandu with their elephant-force. Urgedby Duryodhana, many kings also of the west and the south, and many othersheaded by the ruler of the Kalingas, also surrounded Arjuna, with theirelephants huge as hills. Partha however, with shafts sped from Gandiva,quickly cut off the heads and arms, decked with ornaments, of thoseadvancing combatants. The field of battle, strewn with those heads andarms decked with Angadas, looked like golden stones entwined by snakes.And the arms of warriors cut off therewith, while failing down, lookedlike birds dropping down from trees. And the elephants, pierced withthousands of arrows and shedding blood (from their wounds), looked likehills in the season of rains with liquefied red chalk streaming downtheir sides. Others, slain by Partha with sharp shafts, lay prostrate onthe field. And many Mlecchas on the backs of elephants, of diverse kindsof ugly forms, robed in diverse attires, O king, and armed with diversekinds of weapons, and bathed in blood, looked resplendent as they lay onthe field, deprived of life by means of diverse kinds of arrows. Andthousands of elephants along with their riders and those on foot thaturged them forward, struck with Partha’s shafts, vomited blood, oruttered shrieks of agony, or fell down, or ran ungovernably in alldirections. And many, exceedingly frightened, trod down and crushed theirown men. And many which were kept as reserves and which were fierce assnakes of virulent poison, did the same. And many terrible Yavanas andParadas and Sakas and Valhikas, and Mlecchas born of the cow (belongingto Vasishtha), of fierce eyes, accomplished in smiting looking likemessengers of Death, and all conversant with the deceptive powers of theAsuras and many Darvabhisaras and Daradas and Pundras numbering bythousands, of bands, and together forming a force that was countless,began to shower their sharp shafts upon the son of Pandu. Accomplished invarious modes of warfare, those Mlecchas covered Arjuna with theirarrows. Upon them, Dhananjaya also quickly poured his arrows. And thosearrows, shot from Gandiva, looked like flights of locusts, as theycoursed through the welkin. Indeed. Dhananjaya, having by his arrowscaused a shade over the troops like that of the clouds, slew, by theforce of his weapons, all the Mlecchas, with heads completely shaved orhalf-shaved or covered with matted locks, impure in habits, and ofcrooked faces. Those dwellers of hills, pierced with arrows, thosedenizens of mountain-caves, fled away in fear. And ravens and Kankas andwolves, with great glee, drank the blood of those elephants and steedsand their Mleccha-riders overthrown on the field by Partha with his sharpshafts. Indeed, Arjuna caused a fierce river to flow there whose currentconsisted of blood. (Slain) foot-soldiers and steeds and cars andelephants constituted its embankments. The showers of shafts pouredconstituted its rafts and the hairs of the combatants formed its moss andweeds. And the fingers cut off from the arms of warriors, formed itslittle fishes. And that river was as awful as Death itself at the end ofthe Yuga. And that river of blood flowed towards the region of Yama, andthe bodies of stain elephants floating on it, obstructed its current. Andthe earth was covered all over with the blood of Kshatriyas and ofelephants and steeds and their riders, and became one bloody expanse liketo what is seen when Indra showers a heavy down-pour covering uplands andlowlands alike. And that bull among Kshatriyas despatched six thousandhorsemen and again a thousand foremost of Kshatriyas in that battle intothe jaws of death. Thousands of well-equipped elephants, pierced witharrows, lay prostrate on the field, like hills struck down by thunder.And Arjuna careered over the field, slaying steeds and car-warriors andelephants, like an elephant of rent temples crushing a forest a reeds. Asa conflagration, urged by the wind, consumes a dense forest of trees andcreepers and plants and dry wood and grass, even so did that fire, viz.,Pandu’s son Dhananjaya, having shafts for its flames and urged on by theKrishna-wind, angrily consume the forest of thy warriors. Making theterraces of cars empty, and causing the earth to be strewn, with humanbodies, Dhananjaya seemed to dance bow in hand, in the midst of thosevast masses of men. Deluging the earth with blood by means of his shafts,endued with the strength of the thunder, Dhananjaya, excited with wrath,penetrated into the Bharata host. While thus proceeding, Srutayus, theruler of the Amvashthas, resisted him. Arjuna then, O sire, speedilyfelled with keen shafts equipped with Kanka feathers, the steeds ofSrutayus struggling in battle. And cutting off with other shafts, the bowalso of his antagonist, Partha careered over the field. The ruler of theAmvashthas, then with eyes troubled in wrath, took up a mace andapproached the mighty car-warrior Partha and Kesava also in that battle.Then that hero, uplifting his mace, stopped the (progress of Arjuna’s)car by its strokes, and struck Kesava also therewith. Then that slayer ofhostile heroes, viz., Arjuna, beholding Kesava struck with that mace,became filled with wrath. And, then, O Bharata, that hero, with hisshafts, equipped with wings of gold, covered the ruler of the Amvashthas,that foremost or car-warriors, armed with mace, like clouds covering therisen sun. With other shafts, Partha then cut off the mace of thathigh-souled warrior in fragments, reducing it almost to dust. And allthis seemed highly wonderful. Beholding that mace of his cut off infragments, the ruler of the Amvashthas took up another huge mace, andrepeatedly struck both Arjuna and Kesava therewith. Then, Arjuna with acouple of sharp broad-faced arrows, cut off the uplifted arms of Srutayuswhich held the mace, those arms that looked like a couple of Indra’sstandard, and with another winged arrow, he cut off the head of thatwarrior. Thus slain, Srutayus fell down, O king, filling the earth with aloud noise, like a tall standard of Indra when the strings, tying it tothe engine on which it is set, are cut off. Surrounded then on all sidesby rounds of cars and by hundreds upon hundreds of elephants and cars,Partha became invisible like the sun covered with clouds.'”