nd the Panchalas, celebrated for their prowess, beholding the
mighty-armed Karna, loudly shouted, saying, "There is Karna," "Where is
Karna in this fierce battle."--"O thou of wicked understanding, O lowest
of men, fight with us!"--Others, beholding the son of Radha said, with
eyes expanded in wrath, "Let this arrogant wretch of little
understanding, this son of a Suta, be slain by the allied kings. He hath
no need to live. This sinful man is always very hostile to the Parthas.
Obedient to the counsels of Duryodhana, this one is the root of these
evils. Slay him." Uttering such words, great Kshatriya car-warriors,
urged by Pandu's son, rushed towards him, covering him with a dense
shower of arrows, for slaying him. Beholding all those mighty Pandavas
thus (advancing), the Suta's son trembled not, nor experienced any fear.
Indeed, seeing that wonderful sea of troops, resembling Death himself,
that benefactor of thy sons, viz., the mighty and fight-handed Karna,
never vanquished in battle, O bull of Bharata's race, began, with clouds
of shafts, to resist that force on all sides. The Pandavas also fought
with the foe, shooting showers of shafts. Shaking their hundreds and
thousands of bows they fought with Radha's son, like the Daityas of old
fighting with Sakra. The mighty Karna, however, with a dense arrowy
shower of his own dispelled that downpour of arrows caused by those lords
of earth on all sides. The battle that took place between them, and in
which each party counteracted the feats of the other, resembled the
encounter between Sakra and the Danavas in the great battle fought of
yore between the gods and the Asuras. The lightness of arm that we then
beheld of the Suta's son was wonderful in the extreme, inasmuch as, all
his foes, fighting resolutely, could not strike him in that battle.
Checking the clouds of arrows shot by the (hostile) king, that mighty
car-warrior, viz., Radha's son, sped terrible arrows marked with his own
name at the yokes, the shafts, the umbrellas, the cars, and the steeds
(of his foes). Then those kings, afflicted by Karna and losing their
coolness, began to wander on the field like a herd of kine afflicted with
cold. Struck by Karna, large numbers of steeds and elephants and
car-warriors were seen there to drop down deprived of life. The whole
field, O king, became strewn with the fallen heads and arms of
unreturning heroes. With the dead, the dying, and the wailing warriors,
the field of ba