kinds.  And while the prince of the Panchalas and that foremost one of Kuru’s race were thus engaged in battle, Drona consumed many sections of Yudhishthira’s host.  As a mass of clouds is dispersed in different directions by the wind, even so was Yudhisthira’s host, in many parts of the field, scattered by Drona.  For only a short while did that battle look like an ordinary combat.  And then, O king, it became an encounter of infuriated persons in which no consideration was shown for anybody.  And the combatants could no longer distinguish their own men from the foe.  And the battle raged on, the warriors being guided by inferences and watch-words.  Upon the gems on their headgears, upon their necklaces and other ornaments, and upon their coats of mail, rays of light like those of the Sun seemed to fall and play.  And cars and elephants and steeds, decked with streaming banners, seemed in that battle to resemble masses of clouds with flocks of cranes under them.  And men slew men, and steeds of fiery metal slew steeds, and car-warriors slew car-warriors and elephants slew elephants.  And soon a fierce and terrible encounter took place between elephants with tall standards on their backs and mighty compeers (rushing against them).  All in consequence of those huge creatures rubbing their bodies against those of hostile compeers and tearing one another (with their tusks), fires mixed with smoke were generated there by (such) friction of countless tusks with tusks.  Shorn of the standards (on their backs), those elephants, in consequence of the fires caused by their tusks, looked like masses of clouds in the welkin charged with lightning.  And the earth, strewn with elephants dragging (hostile compeers) and roaring and falling down, looked beautiful like the autumnal sky overspread with clouds.  And the roars of those elephants while they were being slaughtered with showers of shafts and lances, sounded like the roll of clouds in the rainy season.  And some huge elephants, wounded with lances and shafts, became panic-stricken.  And others amongst those creatures, left the field with loud cries.[35] And some elephants there, struck by others with their tusks, uttered fierce yells of distress that resounded like the roll of the all-destroying clouds at the end of the Yuga.  And some, turned back by huge antagonists, returned to the charge, urged on by sharp hooks.  And crushing hostile ranks, they began to kill all who came in their way.  And elephant-drivers, attacked by elephant-drivers with arrows and lances, fell down from the backs of their beasts, their weapons and hooks being loosened from their hands.  And many elephants, without riders on their backs, wandered hither and thither like clouds torn from mightier masses, and then fell down, encountering one another.  And some huge elephants, bearing on their backs slain and fallen warriors, or those whose weapons had fallen down, wandered in all directions singly.[36] And in the midst of that carnage, some elephants attacked,