that man lose, etc. whom Drona escapes today with life or whom Drona
vanquishes today."

249. This, in the Bengal texts, is a triplet.

250. I adopt the Bombay reading of the first line of this verse.

251. All these arrows inflicted had wounds and could not be easily
extracted. Shafts of crooked courses were condemned because the
combatants could not easily baffle them, not knowing at whom they would
fall.

252. This verse is omitted in the Bombay text. There can be no doubt,
however, about its genuineness.

253. The celestial weapons were all living agents that appeared at the
bidding of him who knew to invoke them. They abandoned, however, the
person whose death was imminent, although invoked with the usual formulae.

254. I adopt the Bombay reading.

255. Deprived of both the worlds, having sustained a defeat, they lost
this world, and flying away from the field, they committed a sin and lost
the next world.

256. Celestial weapons were invoked with mantras, as explained in a
previous note. They were forces which created all sorts of tangible
weapons that the invoked desired. Here the Brahma weapon took the form of
broad-headed arrows.

257. Dharmadhwajin literally means a person bearing the standard of
virtue, hence, hypocrite, sanctimoniously talking only virtue and
morality but acting differently.

258. I think the correct reading is aputrinas and not putrinas. If it is
putrinas, literally rendered, the meaning is, 'Why should persons having
children, feel any affection for the latter?' It the worthy of remark
that the author of Venisamhara has bodily adopted this verse, putting it
in the mouth of Aswatthaman when introduced in the third Act.

259. The last line of 37 is read differently in the Bombay edition.
Nilakantha accepts that reading, and explains it in his gloss remarking
that the grammatical solecism occuring in it is a license. The Bengal
reading, however, is more apposite.

260. Literally, "the animals kept the Pandavas to their right."

261. Dasaratha's son Rama, during his exile, slew the monkey-chief Bali,
the brother of Sugriva, while Bali was engaged with Sugriva in battle.
Bali had not done any injury to Rama. That act has always been regarded
as a stain on Rama.

262. I expand the original to make the sense clear.

263. The first line of the 23rd verse in the Bengal editions, is made the
second line of that verse in the Bombay text. There seems to be a
mistake, however, in b