diers and steeds he began to despatch
them unto the abode of Yama. And Drona made the earth miry with blood.
Scattering his mighty weapons and shooting his shafts thick on every
side, Drona soon so covered all the points of the compass, that nothing
could be seen except his showers of arrows. And among foot-soldiers and
cars and steeds and elephants nothing could be seen save Drona's arrows.
The standard of his car was all that could be seen, moving like flashes
of lightning amid the cars.[12] Of soul incapable of being depressed,
Drona then, armed with bow and arrows, afflicted the five princes of
Kekaya and the ruler of the Panchalas and then rushed against the
division of Yudhishthira. Then Bhimasena and Dhananjaya and the grandson
of Sini, and the sons of Drupada, and the ruler of Kasi, viz., the son of
Saivya, and Sivi himself, cheerfully and with loud roars covered him with
their arrows. Shafts in thousands, decked with wings of gold, shot from
Drona's bow, piercing through the bodies of the elephants and the young
horses of those warriors, entered the earth, their feathers dyed with
blood. The field of battle, strewn with cars and the prostrate forms of
large bands of warriors, and of elephants and steeds mangled with shafts,
looked like the welkin covered with masses of black clouds. Then Drona,
desirous of the prosperity of thy sons, having thus crushed the divisions
of Satyaki, and Bhima, and Dhananjaya and Subhadra's son and Drupada, and
the ruler of the Kasi, and having ground many other heroes in battle,
indeed, that high-souled warrior, having achieved these and many other
feats, and having, O chief of the Kurus, scorched the world like the Sun
himself as he rises at the end of the Yuga, proceeded hence, O monarch,
to heaven. That hero possessed of golden car, that grinder of hostile
hosts, having achieved mighty feats and slain in thousands the warriors
of the Pandava host in battle, hath at last been himself slain by
Dhrishtadyumna. Having, in fact, slain more than two Akshauhinis of brave
and unreturning warriors, that hero endued with intelligence, at last,
attained to the highest state. Indeed, O king, having achieved the most
difficult feats, he hath, at last, been slain by the Pandavas and the
Panchalas of cruel deeds. When the preceptor was slain in battle, there
arose in the welkin, O monarch, a loud uproar of all creatures, as also
of all the troops. Resounding through heaven and earth and the
inte