and having their ends cased in leathern fences.
With hands cased in leathern fences, with displaced
ornaments, with severed thighs looking like elephants’
trunks of many active warriors, with fallen heads,
decked with costly gems and earrings, of heroes having
large expansive eyes, the Earth looks exceedingly beautiful.
With headless trunks smeared all over with blood with
severed limbs and heads and hips, the Earth looks,
O best of the Bharatas, like an altar strewn with
extinguished fires. Behold those beautiful cars
with rows of golden bells, broken in diverse ways,
and those slain steeds lying scattered on the field,
with arrows yet sticking to their bodies. Behold
those bottoms of cars, those quivers, those banners,
those diverse kinds of standards, those gigantic conchs
of car-warriors, white in hue and scattered all over
the field. Behold those elephants, huge as hills,
lying on the Earth, with tongues lolling out, and
those other elephants and steeds, deprived of life
and decked with triumphal banners. Behold those
housings of elephants, and those skins and blankets,
and those other beautiful and variegated and torn
blankets. Behold those rows of bells torn and
broken in diverse ways in consequence of falling elephants
of gigantic size, and those beautiful goads set with
stones of lapis lazuli, and those hooks falling upon
the ground. Behold those whips, adorned with gold,
and variegated with gems, still in the grasp of (slain)
horsemen, and those blankets and skins of the Ranku
deer falling on the ground but which had served for
seats on horse back. Behold those gems for adorning
the diadems of kings, and those beautiful necklaces
of gold, and those displaced umbrellas and yak-tails
for fanning. Behold the Earth, miry with blood,
strewn with the faces of heroes, decked with beautiful
earrings and well-cut beards and possessed of the splendour
of the moon and stars. Behold those wounded warriors
in whom life is not yet extinct and who, lying all
around, are uttering wails of woe. Their relatives,
O prince, casting aside their weapons are tending
them, weeping incessantly. Having covered many
warriors with arrows and deprived them of life, behold
those combatants, endued with activity longing for
victory, and swelling with rage, are once more proceeding
for battle against their antagonists. Others
are running hither and thither on the field.
Being begged for water by fallen heroes, others related
to them have gone in quest of drink. Many, O
Arjuna, are breathing their last meanwhile. Returning
their brave relatives, seeing them become senseless
are throwing down the water they brought and are running
wildly, shouting at one another. Behold, many
have died after having slaked their thirst, and many,
O Bharata, are dying while drinking. Others, though
affectionate towards relatives, are still seen to rush
towards foes in great battle deserting their dear
relatives. Others, again, O best of men, biting
their nether lips, and with faces rendered terrible


