produced by that encounter, the earth seemed to tremble.  And birds, uttering fierce cries, hovered in the air.  The Sun, radiant as he was when he had risen, became dimmed.  And fierce winds blew, indicating great terrors.  Frightful jackals wandered, yelling terribly, O king, and foreboding an awful carnage at hand.  The quarters seemed, O king, to be ablaze, and showers of dust fell from the blue.  And a shower fell there, of pieces of bones mixed with blood.  And tears fell from the eyes of the animals which were all weeping.  And filled with anxiety, O king, these began to urinate and eject the contents of their stomachs.  And the loud shouts of battle, O bull of Bharata’s race, were rendered inaudible by the louder cries of Rakshasas and cannibals.  And jackals and vultures and crows and dogs, uttering diverse kinds of cries, began, O sire, to fall and swoop down on the field.  And blazing meteors, striking against the Sun’s disc, fell with great celerity on the earth, foreboding great terrors.  Then those two vast hosts belonging to the Pandavas and the Dhartarashtras, in course of that awful encounter, shook in consequence of that tremendous uproar of conches and drums like forests shaken by the tempest.  And the noise made by the two armies, both of which abounded with kings, elephants, and steeds, and which encountered each other in an evil hour, resembled the noise made by oceans tossed by the tempest.”

SECTION CI

Sanjaya said, “Then the noble Abhimanyu of great energy, borne by his steeds of a tawny hue, rushed at the mighty host of Duryodhana, scattering his arrowy showers like the clouds pouring torrents of rain.  O son of Kuru’s race, thy warriors, in that battle, were unable to resist that slayer of foes, viz., Subhadra’s son, who, excited with wrath and possessed of wealth of arms, was then immersed in that inexhaustible ocean of (Kaurava) forces.  Death-dealing shafts, O king, shot by him in that battle, despatched many heroic Kshatriyas to the regions of the king of the departed spirits.  Indeed, excited with wrath Subhadra’s son in that battle shot fierce and blazing arrows in profusion that resembled snakes of virulent poison or rods of death himself.  And Phalguni’s son speedily split into fragments car-warriors with their cars, steeds with their riders, and elephant-warriors along with the huge animals they rode.  And the rulers of the earth, filled with joy, applauded those mighty feats in battle and praised him also that achieved them.  And the son of Subhadra, O Bharata, tossed those divisions (of the Kaurava army) like the tempest tossing a heap of cotton on all sides in the welkin.  Routed by him, O Bharata, the troops failed to find a protector, like elephants sunk in a slough.  Then, O best of men, having routed all troops, Abhimanyu stood, O king, like a blazing fire without a curl of smoke.  Indeed, O king, thy warriors were incapable of bearing that