became fierce and terrible.  And during the progress of that awful battle, Arjuna’s son, in the very sight of Drona, breaking that array, penetrated into it.  Then large bodies of elephants and steeds and cars and infantry, filled with joy, encompassed that mighty warrior after he had thus penetrated into the midst of the foe, and commenced to smite him. [Causing the earth to resound] with noise of diverse musical instruments, with shouts and slaps of arm-pits and roars, with yells and leonine shouts, with exclamations of ‘Wait, Wait,’ with fierce confused voices with cries of, ‘Do not go, Wait, Come to me’, with repeated exclamations of, ‘This one, It is I, The foe,’ with grunt of elephants, with the tinkling of bells and ornaments, with bursts of laughter, and the clatter of horse-hoofs and car-wheels, the (Kaurava) warriors rushed at the son of Arjuna.  That mighty hero, however, endued with great lightness of hands and having a knowledge of the vital parts of the body, quickly shooting weapons capable of penetrating into the very vitals, stew those advancing warriors.  Slaughtered by means of sharp shafts of diverse kinds, those warriors became perfectly helpless, and like insects falling upon a blazing fire, they continued to fall upon Abhimanyu on the field of battle.  And Abhimanyu strewed the earth with their bodies and diverse limbs of their bodies like priests strewing the altar at a sacrifice with blades of Kusa grass.  And Arjuna’s son cut off by thousands the arms of those warriors.  And some of these were eased in corslets made of iguana skin and some held bows and shafts, and some held swords or shields or iron hooks and reins; and some, lances of battle axes.  And some held maces or iron balls or spears and some, rapiers and crow-bars and axes.  And some grasped short arrows, or spiked maces, or darts, or Kampanas.  And some had goads and prodigious conchs; and some bearded darts and Kachagrahas.  And some had mallets and some other kinds of missiles.  And some had nooses, and some heavy clubs, and some brickbats.  And all those arms were decked with armlets and laved with delightful perfumes and unguents.  And with those arms dyed with gore and looking bright the field of battle became beautiful, as if strewn, O sire, with five-headed snakes slain by Garuda.  And Phalguni’s son also scattered over the field of battle countless heads of foes, heads graced with beautiful noses and faces and locks, without pimples, and adorned with ear-rings.  Blood flowed from those heads copiously, and the nether-lips in all were bit with wrath.  Adorned with beautiful garlands and crowns and turbans and pearls and gems, and possessed of splendour equal to that of the sun or the moon, they seemed to be like lotuses severed from their stalks.  Fragrant with many perfumes, while life was in them, they could speak words both agreeable and beneficial.  Diverse cars, well-equipped, and looking like the vapoury edifices in the welkin, with shafts in front and excellent