d with fear, Kesava, endued with great intelligence and
devoted to their welfare, addressed Arjuna and said, "This foremost of
all bowmen is incapable of being ever vanquished by force in battle, by
the very gods with Vasava at their head. When, however, he lays aside his
weapons, he becomes capable of being slain on the field even by human
beings. Casting aside virtue, ye sons of Pandu, adopt now some
contrivance for gaining the victory, so that Drona of the golden car may
not slay us all in battle. Upon the fall of (his son) Aswatthaman he will
cease to fight, I think. Let some man, therefore, tell him that
Aswatthaman hath been slain in battle." This advice, however, O king was
not approved by Kunti's son, Dhananjaya. Others approved of it. But
Yudhishthira accepted it with great difficulty. Then the mighty-armed
Bhima, O king, slew with a mace a foe-crushing, terrible and huge
elephant named Aswatthaman, of his own army, belonging to Indravarman,
the chief of the Malavas. Approaching Drona then in that battle with some
bashfulness Bhimasena began to exclaim aloud, "Aswatthaman hath been
slain." That elephant named Aswatthaman having been thus slain, Bhima
spoke of Aswatthaman's slaughter. Keeping the true fact within his mind,
he said what was untrue. Hearing those highly disagreeable words of Bhima
and reflecting upon them, Drona's limbs seemed to dissolve like sands in
water. Recollecting however, the prowess of his son, he soon came to
regard that intelligence as false. Hearing, therefore, of his slaughter,
Drona did not become unmanned. Indeed, soon recovering his senses, he
became comforted, remembering that his son was incapable of being
resisted by foes. Rushing towards the son of Prishata and desirous of
slaying that hero who had been ordained as his slayer, he covered him
with a thousand keen shafts, equipped with kanka feathers. Then twenty
thousand Panchala car-warriors of great energy covered him, while he was
thus careering in battle, with their shafts. Completely shrouded with
those shafts, we could not any longer see that great car-warrior who then
resembled, O monarch, the sun, covered with clouds in the season of
rains. Filled with wrath and desirous of compassing the destruction of
those brave Panchalas, that mighty car-warrior, that scorcher of foes,
viz., Drona, dispelling all those shafts of the Panchalas, then invoked
into existence the Brahma weapon. At that time, Drona looked resplendent
like a