to the celestials
themselves. Then all the illustrious dwellers in heaven went in a body
unto him of a hundred sacrifices and thousand eyes, viz., their chief,
that grinder of Asuras. Approaching Indra, the celestial said, 'Why, O
lord of immortals, doth Agni burn these creatures below? Hath the time
come for the destruction of the world?'

"Vaisampayana continued, 'Hearing these words of the gods, and himself
beholding what Agni was doing, the slayer of Vritra set out for the
protection of the forest of Khandava. And Vasava, the chief of the
celestials soon covering the sky with masses of clouds of every kind
began to shower upon the burning forest. Those masses of clouds by
hundreds and thousands, commanded by Indra began to pour rain upon
Khandava in showers thick as the flag-staffs of battle-cars. But the
showers were all dried up in the sky itself by the heat of the fire and
could not, therefore, reach the fire at all! Then the slayer of Namuchi,
getting angry with Agni, collected huge masses of clouds and caused them
to yield a heavy downpour. Then with the flames contending with those
heavy showers, and with masses of clouds overhead, that forest, filled
with smoke and flashes of lightning, became terrible to behold.'"

SECTION CCXXIX

(Khandava-daha Parva continued)

"Vaisampayana said, 'Then Vibhatsu, the son of Pandu, invoking his
excellent weapons, prevented that shower of rain by Indra, by means of a
shower of his own weapons. And Arjuna of immeasurable soul soon covered
the forest of Khandava with innumerable arrows like the moon covering the
atmosphere with a thick fog. When the sky above that forest was thus
covered with the arrows of Arjuna no living creature could then escape
from below. And it so happened that while that forest was burning,
Takshaka, the chief of the Nagas, was not there, having gone at that time
to the field of Kurukshetra. But Aswasena, the mighty son of Takshaka,
was there. He made great efforts to escape from that fire; but confined
by Arjuna's shafts he succeeded not in finding a way. It was then that
his mother, the daughter of a snake, determined to save him by swallowing
him first. His mother first swallowed his head and then was swallowing
his tail. And desirous of saving her son, the sea-snake rose (up from the
earth) while still employed in swallowing her son's tail. But Arjuna as
soon as he beheld her escaping, severed her head from her body by means
of a sharp and