counter between Bhima and Karna. Then Karna struck Bhima with
twenty arrows, and quickly pierced the latter's charioteer also with
five. Smiling the while, the mighty and active Bhima then, in that
battle, quickly sped at Karna four and sixty arrows. Then Karna, O king,
sped four shafts at him. Bhima, by means of his straight shafts, cut them
into many fragments, O king, displaying his lightness of hand. Then Karna
covered him with dense showers of arrows. Thus covered by Karna, the
mighty son of Pandu, however, cut off Karna's bow at the handle and then
pierced Karna with ten straight arrows. The Suta's son then, that mighty
car-warrior of terrible deeds, taking up another bow and stringing it
quickly, pierced Bhima in that battle (with many shafts). Then Bhima,
excited with rage, struck the Suta's son with great force on the chest
with three straight shafts. With those arrows sticking at his breast,
Karna looked beautiful, O bull of Bharata's race, like a mountain with
three tall summits. Thus pierced with mighty shafts, blood began to flow
from his wounds, like torrents of liquid red-chalk down the breast of a
mountain. Afflicted with those shafts shot with great force, Karna became
agitated a little. Fixing an arrow then on his bow, he pierced Bhima,
again, O sire! And once more he began to shoot arrows by hundreds and
thousands. Suddenly shrouded with shafts by that firm bowman, viz.,
Karna, the son of Pandu, smiling the while, cut off Karna's bow-string.
And then with a broad-headed arrow, he despatched Karna's charioteer to
the abode of Yama. And that mighty car-warrior, viz., Bhima, deprived the
four steeds also of Karna of their lives. The mighty car-warrior Karna
then speedily jumping down, O king, from his steedless car, mounted the
car of Vrishasena. The valiant Bhimasena then, having vanquished Karna in
battle, uttered a loud shout deep as the roar of the clouds. Hearing that
roar, O Bharata, Yudhishthira became highly gratified, knowing that Karna
had been vanquished by Bhimasena. And the combatants of the Pandava army
blew their conchs from every side. Their enemies, viz., thy warriors,
hearing that noise, roared loudly. Arjuna stretched Gandiva, and Krishna
blew Panchajanya. Drowning, however, all those sounds, the noise made by
the roaring Bhima, was, O king, heard by all the combatants, O sire! Then
those two warriors, viz., Karna, and Bhima, each struck the other with
straight shafts. The son of Radha, h