ested of
banners and standards and umbrellas and steeds and drivers and weapons in
that battle. Indeed, those lords of Earth, deprived of life and limbs,
fell down on the Earth. Looking like the mountain-summits in consequence
of their uneven backs, huge elephants with their riders, deprived of
life, fell down like mountains riven by thunder. Thousands of steeds,
with their armour, equipments, and adornments all torn and broken and
displaced, fell down, along with their heroic riders, deprived of life.
Car-warriors with weapons loosened from their grasp, and deprived by
(hostile) car-warriors of cars and life, and large bands of
foot-soldiers, slain by hostile heroes in that dreadful clash, fell down
in thousands. The Earth became covered with the heads of heroic
combatants intoxicated with battle, heads that were adorned with large
and expansive eyes of coppery hue and faces as beautiful as the lotus or
the moon. And people heard noises as loud in the sky as on the surface of
the Earth, in consequence of the sound of music and song proceeding from
large bands of Apsaras on their celestial cars, with which those bands of
heavenly choristers continually greeted the newly-arrived heroes slain in
hundreds and thousands by brave enemies on Earth, and with which, placing
them on celestial cars, they repaired on those vehicles (towards the
region of Indra). Witnessing with their own eyes those wonderful sights,
and actuated by the desire of going to heaven, heroes with cheerful
hearts speedily slew one another. Car-warriors fought beautifully with
car-warriors in that battle, and foot-soldiers with foot-soldiers, and
elephants with elephants, and steeds with steeds. Indeed, when that
battle, destructive of elephants and steeds and men, raged in this way,
the field became covered with the dust raised by the troops. Then enemies
slew enemies and friends slew friends. The combatants dragged one another
by their locks, bit one another with their teeth, tore one another with
their nails, and struck one another with clenched fists, and fought one
another with bare arms in that fierce battle destructive of both life and
sins. Indeed, as that battle, fraught with carnage of elephants and
steeds and men, raged on so fiercely, a river of blood ran from the
bodies of (slain) human beings and steeds and elephants. And that current
carried away a large number of dead bodies of elephants and steeds and
men. Indeed, in that vast host teeming