of mail were seen lying scattered about.  Innumerable headless trunks wore seen to rise up, O king, in the midst of that fierce battle.  And vultures and Kankas and jackals and swarms of other carnivorous animals, O sire, were seen there, eating the flesh of fallen men and steeds and elephants, of drinking their blood, or dragging them by the hair, or licking or pecking, O king, at their marrow, or dragging their bodies and severed limbs, or rolling their heads on the ground.  Warriors, skilled in battle, accomplished in weapons, and firmly resolved in fight, struggled vigorously in the combat, solicitous only of fame.  Many were the combatants that careered over the field, performing the diverse evolutions, of swordsmen.  With sabres and darts and lances and spears and axes, with maces and spiked clubs and other kinds of weapons, and with even bare arms, men who had entered the arena of battle, filled with rage, slew one another.  And car-warriors fought with car-warriors, and horsemen with horsemen, and elephants with foremost of elephants, and foot-soldiers with foot-soldiers.  And many infuriated elephants, as if perfectly mad, uttered loud shrieks and slew one another, after the manner they do in sporting arenas.

“During the progress, O king, of that battle in which the combatants fought without any regard for one another, Dhrishtadyumna caused his own steeds to be mixed up with those of Drona.  Those steeds endued with the speed of the wind, that were white as pigeons and red as blood, thus mixed with one another in battle, looked exceedingly beautiful.  Indeed, they looked resplendent like clouds charged with lightning.  Then that slayer of hostile heroes, viz., heroic Dhrishtadyumna, the son of Prishata, beholding Drona, O Bharata, arrived so near, cast off his bow and took up his sword and shield, for achieving a difficult feat.  Seizing the shaft of Drona’s car, he entered into it.  And he stayed sometimes on the middle of the yoke, and sometimes on its joints and sometimes behind the steeds.  And while he was moving, armed with swords, quickly upon the backs of those red steeds of Drona, the latter could not detect an opportunity for striking him.[139] All this seemed wonderful to us.  Indeed, like the sweep of a hawk in the woods from desire of food, seemed that sally of Dhrishtadyumna from his own car for the destruction of Drona.  Then Drona cut off, with a hundred arrows, the shield, decked with a hundred moons, of Drupada’s son, and then his sword, with ten others.  And mighty Drona then, with four and sixty arrows, slew the steeds of his antagonist.  And with a couple of broad-headed shafts he cut off the latter’s standard and umbrella also, and then slew both his Parshni charioteers.  And then with great speed drawing his bow-string to his ear, he shot at him a fatal shaft, like the wielder of the thunder hurling the thunder (at a foe).  But soon Satyaki, with four and ten sharp shafts, cut off that fatal arrow of Drona.  And thus the Vrishni hero,