desirous of rescuing Yudhishthira, surrounded
Drona on all sides and impeded his way, scattering countless arrows.
Vyaghradatta, the prince of the Panchalas, pierced Drona with fifty
keen-pointed arrows, at which, O king, the troops uttered loud shouts.
Then Singhasena also, quickly piercing that mighty car-warrior, Drona,
roared aloud in joy, striking terror into the hearts of mighty
car-warriors; Drona then expanding his eyes and rubbing his bowstring and
producing loud sound of slaps by his palms, rushed against the latter.
Then the mighty son of Bharadwaja, putting forth his prowess, cut off
with a couple of broad-headed arrows the heads decked with earrings from
the trunks of both Singhasena and Vyaghradatta. And afflicting also, with
his arrowy showers, the other mighty car-warriors of the Pandavas, he
stood in front of Yudhishthira's car, like all-destroying Death himself.
Then, O king, loud cries were heard among the warriors of Yudhishthira's
army to the effect, "The king is slain," when Bharadwaja's son, of
regulated vows, thus, stood in his vicinity. And the warriors there all
exclaimed, beholding Drona's prowess, "Today the royal son of
Dhritarashtra will be crowned with success. This very moment Drona having
seized Yudhishthira, will, filled with joy, assuredly come to us and
Duryodhana's presence." While thy soldiers were indulging in such talks,
Kunti's son (Arjuna) quickly came there, filling (the welkin) with the
rattle of his car, and creating, as he came, owing to the carnage he
caused, a river whose waters were blood, and whose eddies were cars, and
which abounded with the bones and bodies of brave warriors and which bore
creatures away to where the spirits of the departed dwell. And the son of
Pandu came there, routing the Kurus, and quickly crossing that river
whose froth was constituted by showers of arrows and which abounded with
fish in the form of lances and other weapons. And the diadem-decked
(Arjuna) suddenly came upon Drona's divisions, covering it with a thick
net-work of arrows and confounding the very sense (of those that followed
Drona). Incessantly placing his arrows on the bow-string and quickly
shooting them, none could notice any lapse of time between these two acts
of the renowned son of Kunti. Neither (four cardinal) directions, nor the
firmament above, nor the earth, O king, could any longer be
distinguished, for everything then became one dense mass of arrows.
Indeed, O king, when