Bharata, be
thou engaged in austerities. By performing penances, thou wilt in a
short time behold the lord of the celestials." And according to his
advice I ascended the _Himavan_, and, O mighty king, began to practise
penances, (the first) month subsisting on fruit and roots. I spent the
second month, subsisting on water. And, O Pandava, in the third month I
totally abstained from food. And in the fourth month I remained with
upraised arms. And a wonder it is that I did not lose any strength. And
it came to pass that when the first day of the fifth month had been
spent, there appeared before me a being wearing the form of a boar,
turning up the earth with his mouth, stamping the ground with his feet,
rubbing the earth with his breast, and momentarily going about in a
frightful manner. And him followed a great being in the guise of a
hunter furnished with the bow, arrows, and the sword, and surrounded by
females. Thereupon, taking my bow and the two inexhaustible quivers, I
pierced with shafts that terrible and frightful creature. And
simultaneously (with me) that hunter also drawing a strong bow, more
severely struck at (the animal), as if shaking my mind. And, O king, he
also said unto me, "Why hast thou, transgressing the rules of hunting,
hit the animal first hit at by me? With these sharpened shafts will I
destroy thy pride. Stay!" Then that mighty-bodied one holding the bow
rushed at me. And with volleys of mighty shafts, he covered me entirely,
even as a cloud covereth a mountain with showers. Then, on my part, I
covered him with a mighty discharge of arrows. Thereupon, with steady
arrows having their points aflame, and inspired with _mantras_, I
pierced him even as (Indra) riveth a mountain with a thunderbolt. Then
his person began to be multiplied a hundredfold and a thousandfold. At
this, I pierced all his bodies with shafts. Then again all those forms
became one, O Bharata. Thereat I struck at it. Next, he now assumed a
small body with a huge head, and now a huge body with a small head. And,
O king, he then assumed his former person and approached me for fight.
And, O foremost of the Bharata race, when in the encounter I failed to
overwhelm him with arrows, I fixed the mighty weapon of the Wind-god.
But I failed to discharge it at him, and this was a wonder. And when
that weapon thus failed of effect, I was struck with amazement. However,
O king, exerting myself more vigorously, I again covered that being with