bamboo poles and looking beautiful with the standards set up on them, were deprived of their Janghas, and Kuvaras, and Nemis, and Dasanas, and wheels, and standards and terraces.  And the utensils of war in them were all broken.[64] And the rich clothes with which they were overlaid, were blown away, and the warriors on them were slain by thousands.  Mangling everything before him with his shafts, Abhimanyu was seen coursing on all sides.  With his keen-edged weapons, he cut into pieces elephant-warriors, and elephants with standards and hooks and banners, and quivers and coats of mail, and girths and neck-ropes and blankets, and bells and trunks and tusks as also the foot-soldiers that protected those elephants from behind.  And many steeds of the Vanayu, the hilly, the Kamvoja, and the Valhika breeds, with tails and ears and eyes motionless and fixed, possessed of great speed, well-trained, and ridden by accomplished warriors armed with swords and lances, were seen to be deprived of the excellent ornaments on their beautiful tails.  And many lay with tongues lolling out and eyes detached from their sockets, and entrails and livers drawn out.  And the riders on their backs lay lifeless by their sides.  And the rows of bells that adorned them were all torn.  Strewn over the field thus, they caused great delight to Rakshasas and beasts of prey.  With coats of mail and other leathern armour (casing their limbs) cut open, they weltered in excreta ejected by themselves.  Thus slaying many foremost of steeds of thy army, Abhimanyu looked resplendent.  Alone achieving the most difficult feat, like the inconceivable Vibhu himself in days of old, Abhimanyu crushed thy vast host of three kinds of forces (cars, elephants, and steeds), like the three-eyed (Mahadeva) of immeasurable energy crushing the terrible Asura host.  Indeed, Arjuna’s son, having achieved in battle feats incapable of being borne by his foes, everywhere mangled large divisions of foot-soldiers belonging to thy army.  Beholding then thy host extensively slaughtered by Subhadra’s son single-handed with his whetted shafts like the Asura host by Skanda (the celestial generalissimo), thy warriors and thy sons cast vacant looks on all sides.  Their mouths became dry; their eyes became restless; their bodies were covered with sweat; and their hairs stood on their ends.  Hopeless of vanquishing their foe, they set their hearts on flying away from the field.  Desirous of saving their lives, called one another by their names and the names of their families, and abandoning their wounded sons and sires and brothers and kinsmen and relatives by marriage lying around on the field, they endeavoured to fly away, urging their steeds and elephants (to their utmost speed).’”

SECTION XXXV