ce and terrible encounter took place between elephants with tall
standards on their backs and mighty compeers (rushing against them). All
in consequence of those huge creatures rubbing their bodies against those
of hostile compeers and tearing one another (with their tusks), fires
mixed with smoke were generated there by (such) friction of countless
tusks with tusks. Shorn of the standards (on their backs), those
elephants, in consequence of the fires caused by their tusks, looked like
masses of clouds in the welkin charged with lightning. And the earth,
strewn with elephants dragging (hostile compeers) and roaring and falling
down, looked beautiful like the autumnal sky overspread with clouds. And
the roars of those elephants while they were being slaughtered with
showers of shafts and lances, sounded like the roll of clouds in the
rainy season. And some huge elephants, wounded with lances and shafts,
became panic-stricken. And others amongst those creatures, left the field
with loud cries.[35] And some elephants there, struck by others with
their tusks, uttered fierce yells of distress that resounded like the
roll of the all-destroying clouds at the end of the Yuga. And some,
turned back by huge antagonists, returned to the charge, urged on by
sharp hooks. And crushing hostile ranks, they began to kill all who came
in their way. And elephant-drivers, attacked by elephant-drivers with
arrows and lances, fell down from the backs of their beasts, their
weapons and hooks being loosened from their hands. And many elephants,
without riders on their backs, wandered hither and thither like clouds
torn from mightier masses, and then fell down, encountering one another.
And some huge elephants, bearing on their backs slain and fallen
warriors, or those whose weapons had fallen down, wandered in all
directions singly.[36] And in the midst of that carnage, some elephants
attacked, or in course of being attacked with lances, swords and battle
axes, fell down in course of that awful carnage, uttering sounds of
distress. And the earth, suddenly struck with the falling bodies, huge as
hills, of those creatures all around trembled and emitted sounds. And
with those elephants slain along with their riders and lying all about
with the standards on their backs, the earth looked beautiful as if
strewn with hills. And the drivers on the backs of many elephants, with
their breasts pierced by car-warriors with broad-headed shafts in that
battl