verse attires, O king, and armed with diverse
kinds of weapons, and bathed in blood, looked resplendent as they lay on
the field, deprived of life by means of diverse kinds of arrows. And
thousands of elephants along with their riders and those on foot that
urged them forward, struck with Partha's shafts, vomited blood, or
uttered shrieks of agony, or fell down, or ran ungovernably in all
directions. And many, exceedingly frightened, trod down and crushed their
own men. And many which were kept as reserves and which were fierce as
snakes of virulent poison, did the same. And many terrible Yavanas and
Paradas and Sakas and Valhikas, and Mlecchas born of the cow (belonging
to Vasishtha), of fierce eyes, accomplished in smiting looking like
messengers of Death, and all conversant with the deceptive powers of the
Asuras and many Darvabhisaras and Daradas and Pundras numbering by
thousands, of bands, and together forming a force that was countless,
began to shower their sharp shafts upon the son of Pandu. Accomplished in
various modes of warfare, those Mlecchas covered Arjuna with their
arrows. Upon them, Dhananjaya also quickly poured his arrows. And those
arrows, shot from Gandiva, looked like flights of locusts, as they
coursed through the welkin. Indeed, Dhananjaya, having by his arrows
caused a shade over the troops like that of the clouds, slew, by the
force of his weapons, all the Mlecchas, with heads completely shaved or
half-shaved or covered with matted locks, impure in habits, and of
crooked faces. Those dwellers of hills, pierced with arrows, those
denizens of mountain-caves, fled away in fear. And ravens and Kankas and
wolves, with great glee, drank the blood of those elephants and steeds
and their Mleccha-riders overthrown on the field by Partha with his sharp
shafts. Indeed, Arjuna caused a fierce river to flow there whose current
consisted of blood. (Slain) foot-soldiers and steeds and cars and
elephants constituted its embankments. The showers of shafts poured
constituted its rafts and the hairs of the combatants formed its moss and
weeds. And the fingers cut off from the arms of warriors, formed its
little fishes. And that river was as awful as Death itself at the end of
the Yuga. And that river of blood flowed towards the region of Yama, and
the bodies of slain elephants floating on it, obstructed its current. And
the earth was covered all over with the blood of Kshatriyas and of
elephants and steeds and the