mighty elephant, huge
as a hill and called Aswatthaman, belonging to the Malava chief,
Indravarman, slain on the field by Bhima, approached Drona and answered
him, saying, 'He for whom thou wieldest weapons, he, looking upon whom
thou livest that ever dear son of thine, viz., Aswatthaman, hath been
slain. Deprived of life he lieth on the bare ground like a young lion.'
Aware fully of the evil consequences of falsehood, the king spoke those
words unto that best of Brahmans, indistinctly adding elephant (after
Aswatthaman). Hearing of the fall of his son, he began to wail aloud,
afflicted with grief, Restraining (the force of) his celestial weapons,
he fought not as before. Beholding him filled with anxiety, and almost
deprived of his senses by grief, the son of the Panchala king, of cruel
deeds, rushed towards him. Seeing the prince who had been ordained as his
slayer, Drona, versed in all truths about men and things, abandoned all
his celestial weapons and sat in Praya on the field of battle. Then
Prishata's son, seizing Drona's head with his left hand and disregarding
the loud admonitions of all the heroes, cut off that head. 'Drona should
not be slain,' even these were the words uttered from every side.
Similarly, Arjuna also, jumping down from his car, quickly ran towards
Prishata's son, with arms upraised and repeatedly saying, 'O thou that
art acquainted with the ways of morality, do not slay the preceptor but
bring him alive.' Though thus forbidden by the Kauravas as also by
Arjuna, Dhrishtadyumna killed thy father. For this, afflicted with fear,
the troops are all flying away. Ourselves also, for the same reason, in
great cheerlessness, O sinless one, are doing the same."'

"Sanjaya continued, 'Hearing of the slaughter of his sire in battle,
Drona's son, like a snake struck with the foot, became filled with fierce
wrath. And filled with rage, O sire, Aswatthaman blazed up in that battle
like a fire fed with a large quantity of fuel. As he squeezed his hands
and ground his teeth, and breathed like a snake, his eyes became red as
blood.'"

SECTION CXCV

"Dhritarashtra said, 'Hearing, O Sanjaya, of the slaughter, by
unrighteous means, of his aged sire, by Dhrishtadyumna, what did the
valiant Aswatthaman say, he, that is, in whom human and Varuna and Agneya
and Brahma and Aindra and Narayana weapons are always present? Indeed,
learning that the preceptor, that foremost of virtuous men, had been
unrighteously