to that of the sun or
the moon, they seemed to be like lotuses severed from their stalks.
Fragrant with many perfumes, while life was in them, they could speak
words both agreeable and beneficial. Diverse cars, well-equipped, and
looking like the vapoury edifices in the welkin, with shafts in front and
excellent bamboo poles and looking beautiful with the standards set up on
them, were deprived of their Janghas, and Kuvaras, and Nemis, and
Dasanas, and wheels, and standards and terraces. And the utensils of war
in them were all broken.[64] And the rich clothes with which they were
overlaid, were blown away, and the warriors on them were slain by
thousands. Mangling everything before him with his shafts, Abhimanyu was
seen coursing on all sides. With his keen-edged weapons, he cut into
pieces elephant-warriors, and elephants with standards and hooks and
banners, and quivers and coats of mail, and girths and neck-ropes and
blankets, and bells and trunks and tusks as also the foot-soldiers that
protected those elephants from behind. And many steeds of the Vanayu, the
hilly, the Kamvoja, and the Valhika breeds, with tails and ears and eyes
motionless and fixed, possessed of great speed, well-trained, and ridden
by accomplished warriors armed with swords and lances, were seen to be
deprived of the excellent ornaments on their beautiful tails. And many
lay with tongues lolling out and eyes detached from their sockets, and
entrails and livers drawn out. And the riders on their backs lay lifeless
by their sides. And the rows of bells that adorned them were all torn.
Strewn over the field thus, they caused great delight to Rakshasas and
beasts of prey. With coats of mail and other leathern armour (casing
their limbs) cut open, they weltered in excreta ejected by themselves.
Thus slaying many foremost of steeds of thy army, Abhimanyu looked
resplendent. Alone achieving the most difficult feat, like the
inconceivable Vibhu himself in days of old, Abhimanyu crushed thy vast
host of three kinds of forces (cars, elephants, and steeds), like the
three-eyed (Mahadeva) of immeasurable energy crushing the terrible Asura
host. Indeed, Arjuna's son, having achieved in battle feats incapable of
being borne by his foes, everywhere mangled large divisions of
foot-soldiers belonging to thy army. Beholding then thy host extensively
slaughtered by Subhadra's son single-handed with his whetted shafts like
the Asura host by Skanda (the celestial gen