And there flowed a river whose current consisted of the blood of elephants and steeds and men.  And the hair (of the combatants) formed its weeds and moss.  And in that battle heads falling from the trunks of men made a loud noise like that of a falling shower of stones.  And the earth was strewn with the headless trunks of human beings, with mangled bodies of elephants and with the hacked limbs of steeds.  And mighty car-warriors chased one another for smiting one another down, and hurled diverse kinds of weapons.  Steeds, urged by their riders and falling upon steeds, dashed against one another and fell down deprived of life.  And men, with eyes red in wrath, rushing against men and striking one another with their chests, smote one another down.  And elephants, urged by their guides against hostile elephants, slew their compeers in that battle, with the points of their tusks.  Covered with blood in consequence of their wounds and decked with standards (on their backs), elephants were entangled with elephants and looked like masses of clouds charged with lightning.  And some amongst them mounted (by others) with the points of their tusks, and some with their frontal globes split with lances, ran hither and thither with loud shrieks like masses of roaring clouds.  And some amongst them with their trunks lopped off,[448] and others with mangled limbs, dropped down in that dreadful battle like mountains shorn of their wings.[449] Other huge elephants, copiously shedding blood from their flanks, ripped open by compeers, looked like mountains with (liquified) red chalk running down their sides (after a shower).[450] Others, slain with shafts or pierced with lances and deprived of their riders, looked like mountains deprived of their crests.[451]Some amongst them, possessed by wrath and blinded (with fury) in consequence of the juice (trickling down their temples and cheeks).[452] and no longer restrained with the hook, crushed cars and steeds and foot-soldiers in that battle by hundreds.  And so steeds, attacked by horsemen with bearded darts and lances, rushed against their assailants, as if agitating the points of the compass.  Car-warriors of noble parentage and prepared to lay down their lives, encountering car-warriors, fought fearlessly, relying upon their utmost might.  The combatants, O king, seeking glory or heaven, struck one another in that awful press, as if in a marriage by self-choice.  During however, that dreadful battle making the hair stand on end, the Dhartarashtra troops generally were made to run their backs on the field.”

SECTION XCV