iting him there? How did the
sons of Pandu battle with Bhishma? How is it, O Sanjaya, that Bhishma
could not conquer when Drona liveth? When Kripa, again, was near him, and
Drona's son (Aswatthaman) also, how could Bhishma, that foremost of
smiters be slain? How could Bhishma who was reckoned as an Atiratha and
who could not be resisted by the very gods, be slain in battle by
Sikhandin, the prince of Panchala? He, who always regarded himself as the
equal of the mighty son of Jamadagni in battle, he whom Jamadagni's son
himself could not vanquish, he who resembled Indra himself in
prowess,--alas, O Sanjaya, tell me how that hero, Bhishma, born in the
race of Maharathas, was slain in battle, for without knowing all the
particulars I cannot regain my equanimity. What great bowmen of my army,
O Sanjaya, did not desert that hero of unfading glory? What heroic
warriors, again, at Duryodhana's command, stood around that hero (for
protecting him)? When all the Pandavas placing Sikhandin in their van
advanced against Bhishma, did not all the Kurus,[83] O Sanjaya, stay by
the side of that hero of unfading prowess? Hard as my heart is, surely it
must be made of adamant, for it breaketh not on hearing the death of that
tiger among men, viz., Bhishma! In that irresistible bull of Bharata's
race, were truth, and intelligence, and policy, to an immeasurable
extent. Alas, how was he slain in battle? Like unto a mighty cloud of
high altitude, having the twang of his bowstring for its roar, his arrows
for its rain-drops, and the sound of his bow for its thunder, that hero
showering his shafts on Kunti's sons with the Panchalas and the Srinjayas
on their side, smote hostile car-warriors like the slayer of Vala smiting
the Danavas. Who were the heroes that resisted, like the bank resisting
the surging sea, that chastiser of foes, who was a terrible ocean of
arrows and weapons, an ocean in which shafts were the irresistible
crocodiles and bows were the waves, an ocean that was inexhaustible,
without an island, agitated and without a raft to cross it, in which
maces and swords were like sharks and steeds and elephants like eddies,
and foot-soldiers like fishes in abundance, and the sound of conches and
drums like its roar, and ocean that swallowed horses and elephants and
foot-soldiers quickly, an ocean that devoured hostile heroes and that
seethed with wrath and energy which constituted its Yadava-fire?[84] When
for Duryodhana's good, that sl