the
field), looked like masses of clouds charged with lightning. The sound, O
king, of severed heads dropping on the earth, resembled that of falling
palmyra fruits ripened in due time, headless trunks arose, some with bow
in hand, and some with naked swords upraised in the act of striking.
Those brave warriors incapable of brooking Arjuna's feats and desirous of
vanquishing him, had no distinct perception as to when their heads were
struck off by Arjuna. The earth became strewn with heads of horses,
trunks of elephants, and the arms and legs of heroic warriors. "This is
one Partha", "Where is Partha? Here is Partha!" Even thus, O king, the
warriors, of thy army became filled with the idea of Partha only.
Deprived of their senses by Time, they regarded the whole world to be
full of Partha only, and therefore, many of them perished, striking one
another, and some struck even their own selves. Uttering yells of woe,
many heroes, covered with blood, deprived of their senses, and in great
agony, laid themselves down, calling upon their friends and kinsmen.
Arms, bearing short arrows, or lances, or darts, or swords, or
battle-axes, or pointed stakes, or scimitars, or bows, or spears, or
shafts, or maces, and cased in armour and decked with Angadas and other
ornaments, and looking like large snakes, and resembling huge clubs, cut
off (from trunks) with mighty weapons, were seen to jump about, jerk
about, and move about, with great force, as if in rage. Every one amongst
those that wrathfully advanced against Partha in that battle, perished,
pierced in his body with some fatal shafts of that hero. While dancing on
his car as it moved, and drawing his bow, no one there could detect the
minutest opportunity for striking him. The quickness with which he took
his shafts, fixed them on the bow, and let them off, filled all his
enemies with wonder. Indeed Phalguna, with his shafts, pierced elephants
and elephant-riders, horses and horse-riders, car-warriors and drivers of
cars. There was none amongst his enemies, whether staying before him or
struggling in battle, or wheeling about, whom the son of Pandu did not
slay. As the sun rising in the welkin destroyeth the thick gloom, even so
did Arjuna destroy that elephant-force by means of his shafts winged with
Kanka plumes. The field occupied by thy troops, in consequence of riven
elephants fallen upon it, looked like the earth strewn with huge hills at
the hour of universal dissolution.