es and swords and axes and shafts of diverse kinds and by means
also of their animals. Strewn with human heads that were adorned with
white teeth and fair faces and beautiful eyes and goodly noses, and
graced with beautiful diadems and earrings, and every one of which
resembled the lotus, the Sun, or the Moon, the Earth looked exceedingly
resplendent. Elephants and men and steeds, by thousands, were slain with
hundreds of spiked clubs and short bludgeons and darts and lances and
hooks and Bhusundis and maces. The blood that fell formed a river like
currents on the field. In consequence of those car-warriors and men and
steeds and elephants slain by the foe, and lying with ghastly features
and gaping wounds, the field of battle looked like the domains of the
king of the dead at the time of universal dissolution. Then, O god among
men, thy troops, and those bulls amongst the Kurus, viz., thy sons
resembling the children of the celestials, with a host of warriors of
immeasurable might at their van, all proceeded against Satyaki, that bull
of Sini's race. Thereupon that host, teeming with many foremost of men
and steeds and cars and elephants, producing an uproar loud as that of
the vast deep, and resembling the army of the Asuras or that of the
celestials, shone with fierce beauty. Then the son of Surya, resembling
the chief of the celestials himself in prowess and like unto the younger
brother of Indra, struck that foremost one of Sini's race with shafts
whose splendour resembled the rays of the Sun. That bull of Sini's race
also, in that battle, then quickly shrouded that foremost of men, with
his car and steeds and driver, with diverse kinds of shafts terrible as
the poison of the snake. Then many Atirathas belonging to thy army,
accompanied by elephants and cars and foot-soldiers, quickly approached
that bull among car-warriors, viz., Vasusena, when they beheld the latter
deeply afflicted with the shafts of that foremost hero of Sini's race.
That force, however, vast as the ocean, assailed by foes possessed of
great quickness viz., the Pandava warriors headed by the sons of Drupada,
fled away from the field. At that time a great carnage occurred of men
and cars and steeds and elephants. Then those two foremost of men, viz.,
Arjuna and Keshava, having said their daily prayer and duly worshipped
the lord Bhava, quickly rushed against thy troops, resolved to slay those
foes of theirs. Their foes (i.e., the Kurus) cast their