they struck Karna with shafts and diverse weapons.  Like Garuda falling upon a large number of snakes, the son of Adhiratha, singlehanded, fell upon all those Cedis and Pancalas and Pandavas in that encounter.  The battle that took place between them and Karna, O monarch, became exceedingly fierce like that which had occurred in days of old between the gods and the Danavas.  Like the Sun dispelling the surrounding darkness, Karna fearlessly and alone encountered all those great bowmen united together and pouring upon him repeated showers of arrows.  While the son of Radha was thus engaged with the Pandavas, Bhimasena, filled with rage, began to slaughter the Kurus with shafts, every one of which resembled the lord of Yama.  That great bowman, fighting single-handed with the Bahlikas, and the Kaikayas, the Matsyas, the Vasatas, the Madras, and Saindhavas, looked exceedingly resplendent.  There, elephants, assailed in their vital limbs by Bhima with his cloth-yard shafts fell down, with their riders slain, making the Earth tremble with the violence of their fall.  Steeds also, with their riders slain, and foot-soldiers deprived of life, lay down, pierced with arrows and vomiting blood in large quantities.  Car-warriors in thousands fell down, their weapons loosened from their hands.  Inspired with the fear of Bhima, they lay deprived of life, their bodies mangled with sounds.  The Earth became strewn with car-warriors and horsemen and elephant-men and drivers and foot-soldiers and steeds and elephants all mangled with the shafts of Bhimasena.  The army of Duryodhana, O king, cheerless and mangled and afflicted with the fear of Bhimasena, stood as if stupefied.  Indeed that melancholy host stood motionless in that dreadful battle like the Ocean, O king, during a calm in autumn.  Stupefied, that host stood even like the Ocean in calm.  However endued with wrath and energy and might, the army of thy son then, divested of its pride, lost all its splendour.  Indeed, the host, whilst thus being slaughtered became drenched with gore and seemed to bathe in blood.  The combatants, O chief of the Bharatas, drenched with blood, were seen to approach and slaughter one another.  The Suta’s son, filled with rage, routed the Pandava division, while Bhimasena in rage routed the Kurus.  And both of them, while thus employed, looked exceedingly resplendent.  During the progress of that fierce battle filling the spectators with wonder, Arjuna, that foremost of various persons, having slain a large number of samsaptakas in the midst of their array, addressed Vasudeva, saying, “This struggling force of samsaptakas, O Janardana, is broken.  Those great car-warriors amongst the samsaptakas are flying away with their followers, unable to bear my shafts, like deer unable to bear the roar of the lion.  The vast force of the Srinjayas also seems to break in this great battle.  There that banner of the intelligent Karna, bearing the device of the elephant’s rope, O Krishna, is seen in the midst of Yudhishthira’s