doubt, I
will seize this one a living captive". Having said these words, the
valiant prince, borne on his beautiful and well-equipped car, rushed at
Abhimanyu. Piercing Abhimanyu with three shafts in the chest, three in
the right arm, and three other sharp shafts in the left arm, he uttered a
loud roar. Phalguni's son, however, cutting off his bow, his right and
left arms, and his head adorned with beautiful eyes and eye-brows quickly
felled them on the earth. Beholding Rukmaratha, the honoured son of
Salya, slain by the illustrious son of Subhadra, that Rukmaratha viz.,
who had vowed to consume his foe or take him alive, many princely friends
of Salya's son, O king, accomplished in smiting and incapable of being
easily defeated in battle, and owning standards decked with gold, (came
up for the fight). Those mighty car-warriors, stretching their bows full
six cubits long, surrounded the son of Arjuna, all pouring their arrowy
showers upon him. Beholding the brave and invincible son of Subhadra
singly encountered by all those wrathful princes endued with heroism and
skill acquired by practice and strength and youth, and seeing him covered
with showers of arrows, Duryodhana rejoiced greatly, and regarded
Abhimanyu as one already made a guest of Yama's abode. Within the
twinkling of an eye, those princes, by means of their shafts of golden
wings, and of diverse forms and great impetuosity, made Arjuna's son
invisible. Himself, his standard, and his car, O sire, were seen by us
covered with shafts like (trees overwhelmed with) flights of locusts.
Deeply pierced, he became filled with rage like an elephant struck with
the hook. He then, O Bharata, applied the Gandharva weapon and the
illusion consequent to it.[73] Practising ascetic penances, Arjuna had
obtained that weapon from the Gandharva Tumvuru and others. With that
weapon, Abhimanyu now confounded his foes. Quickly displaying his
weapons, he careered in that battle like a circle of fire, and was, O
king, seen sometimes as a single individual, sometimes as a hundred, and
sometimes as a thousand ones. Confounding his foes by the skill with
which his car was guided and by the illusion caused by his weapons, he
cut in a hundred pieces, O monarch, the bodies of the kings (opposed to
him). By means of his sharp shafts the lives of living creatures were
despatched. These, O king attained to the other world while their bodies
fell down on the earth. Their bows, and steeds and