lephant!" The Pandava host, frightened by that
elephant, suddenly fled away, O king, to where Vrikodara was waiting.
Meanwhile, king Yudhishthira, thinking Vrikodara to have been slain,
surrounded Bhagadatta on all sides, aided by the Panchalas. Having
surrounded him with numerous cars, king Yudhishthira that foremost of
car-warriors, covered Bhagadatta with keen shafts by hundreds and
thousands. Then Bhagadatta, that king of the mountainous regions,
frustrating with his iron hook that shower of arrows, began to consume
both the Pandavas and the Panchalas by means of that elephant of his.
Indeed, O monarch, the feat that we then beheld, achieved by old
Bhagadatta with his elephant, was highly wonderful. Then the ruler of the
Dasarnas rushed against the king of the Pragjyotisha, on a fleet elephant
with temporal sweat trickling down, for attacking Supratika in the flank.
The battle then that took place between those two elephants of awful
size, resembled that between two winged mountains overgrown with forests
in days of old. Then the elephant of Bhagadatta, wheeling round and
attacking the elephant of the king of the Dasarnas, ripped open the
latter's flank and slew it outright. Then Bhagadatta himself with seven
lances bright as the rays of the sun, slew his (human) antagonist seated
on the elephant just when the latter was about to fall down from his
seat. Piercing king Bhagadatta then (with many arrows), Yudhishthira
surrounded him on all sides with a large number of cars. Staying on his
elephant amid car-warriors encompassing him all around, he looked
resplendent like a blazing fire on a mountain-top in the midst of a dense
forest. He stayed fearlessly in the midst of those serried cars ridden by
fierce bowmen, all of whom showered upon him their arrows. Then the king
of the Pragjyotisha, pressing (with his toe) his huge elephant, urged him
towards the car of Yuyudhana. That prodigious beast, then seizing the car
of Sini's grandson, hurled it to a distance with great force. Yuyudhana,
however, escaped by timely flight. His charioteer also, abandoning the
large steeds of the Sindhu breed, yoked unto that car, quickly followed
Satyaki and stood where the latter stopped. Meanwhile the elephant,
quickly coming out of the circle of cars, began to throw down all the
kings (that attempted to bar his course). These bulls among men,
frightened out of their wits by that single elephant coursing swiftly,
regarded it in that batt