eart.'"

90

"Sanjaya said, 'Flying away in consequence of the falling of Arjuna's
arrows, the broken divisions of the Kauravas, staying at a distance,
continued to gaze at Arjuna's weapon swelling with energy and careering
around with the effulgence of lightning. Then Karna, with showers of
terrible shafts, baffled that weapon of Arjuna while it was still
careering in the welkin and which Arjuna had shot with great vigour in
that fierce encounter for the destruction of his foe. Indeed, that weapon
(of Partha) which, swelling with energy, had been consuming the Kurus,
the Suta's son now crushed with his shafts winged with gold. Bending then
his own loud-sounding bow of irrefragable string, Karna shot showers of
shafts. The Suta's son destroyed that burning weapon of Arjuna with his
own foe-killing weapon of great power which he had obtained from Rama,
and which resembled (in efficacy) an Atharvan rite. And he pierced Partha
also with numerous keen shafts. The encounter then, O king, that took
place between Arjuna and the son of Adhiratha, became a very dreadful
one. They continued to strike each other with arrows like two fierce
elephants striking each other with their tusks. All the points of the
compass then became shrouded with weapons and the very sun became
invisible. Indeed, Karna and Partha, with their arrowy downpours, made
the welkin one vast expanse of arrows without any space between. All the
Kauravas and the Somakas then beheld a wide-spread arrowy net. In that
dense darkness caused by arrows, they were unable to see anything else.
Those two foremost of men, both accomplished in weapons, as they
incessantly aimed and shot innumerable arrows, O king, displayed diverse
kinds of beautiful manoeuvres. While they were thus contending with each
other in battle, sometimes the Suta's son prevailed over his rival and
sometimes the diadem-decked Partha prevailed over his, in prowess and
weapons and lightness of hands. Beholding that terrible and awful
passage-at-arms between those two heroes each of whom was desirous of
availing himself of the other's lapses, all the other warriors on the
field of battle became filled with wonder. The beings in the welkin, O
king, applauded Karna and Arjuna. Indeed, many of them at a time, filled
with joy, cheerfully shouted, sometimes saying, "Excellent, O Karna!" and
sometimes saying, "Excellent, O Arjuna!" During the progress of that
fierce encounter, while the earth was being