d other carnivorous birds, and wolves and hyenas, and
ravens and other food-drinking creatures, all diverse tribes of
Rakshasas, and large number of Pisachas, on the field of battle, tearing
the skins of the corpse and drinking their fat, blood and marrow, began
to eat their flesh. And they began to suck also the secretions of rotten
corpses, while the Rakshasas laughed horribly and sang aloud, dragging
dead bodies numbering thousands. An awful river, difficult to cross, like
the Vaitarani itself, was caused there by foremost of warriors. Its
waters were constituted by the blood (of fallen creatures). Cars
constituted the rafts (on which to cross it), elephants formed its
rocks, and the heads of human beings, its smaller stones. And it was miry
with the flesh (of slain steeds and elephants and men). And diverse kinds
of costly weapons constituted the garlands (floating on it or lying on
its banks). And that terrible river flowed fiercely through the middle of
the field of battle, wafting living creatures to the regions of the dead.
And large numbers of Pisachas, of horrible and repulsive forms, rejoiced,
drinking and eating in that stream. And dogs and jackals and carnivorous
birds, all eating of the same food, and inspiring living creatures with
terror, held their high carnival there. And the warriors, gazing on that
field of battle which, enhancing the population of Yama's domain,
presented such an awful sight, and where human corpses rising up, began
to dance, slowly left it as they beheld the mighty car-warrior Abhimanyu
who resembled Sakra himself, lying on the field, his costly ornaments
displaced and fallen off, and looking like a sacrificial fire on the
altar no longer drenched with clarified butter.'"

SECTION XLIX

"Sanjaya said, 'After the slaughter of that hero, that leader of
car-divisions, viz., the son of Subhadra, the Pandava warriors, leaving
their cars and putting off their armour, and throwing aside their bows,
sat, surrounding king Yudhishthira. And they were brooding over that
grief of theirs, their hearts fixed upon the (deceased) Abhimanyu.
Indeed, upon the fall of that heroic nephew of his, viz., the mighty
car-warrior Abhimanyu, king Yudhishthira, overwhelmed with grief,
indulged in (these) lamentations: "Alas, Abhimanyu, from desire of
achieving my good, pierced the array formed by Drona and teeming with his
soldiers. Encountering him in battle, mighty bowmen endued with great
courage, acc