The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 2,886 pages of information about The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3.

The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 2,886 pages of information about The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3.

21

“Sanjaya said, ’After the heroic Salwa, that ornament of assemblies, had been slain, thy army speedily broke like a mighty tree broken by the force of the tempest.  Beholding the army broken, the mighty car-warrior Kritavarma, possessed by heroism and great strength, resisted the hostile force in that battle.  Seeing the Satwata hero, O king, standing in battle like a hill pierced with arrows (by the foes), the Kuru heroes, who had fled away, rallied and came back.  Then, O monarch, a battle took place between the Pandavas and the returned Kurus who made death itself their goal.  Wonderful was that fierce encounter which occurred between the Satwata hero and his foes, since he resisted the invincible army of the Pandavas.  When friends were seen to accomplish the most difficult feats, friends, filled with delight, uttered leonine shouts that seemed to reach the very heavens.  At those sounds the Pancalas, O bull of Bharata’s race, became inspired with fear.  Then Satyaki, the grandson of Sini, approached that spot.  Approaching king Kshemakirti of great strength, Satyaki despatched him to Yama’s abode, with seven keen shafts.  Then the son of Hridika, of great intelligence, rushed with speed against that bull of Sini’s race, that mighty armed warrior, as the latter came, shooting his whetted shafts.  Those two bowmen, those two foremost of car-warriors, roared like lions and encountered each other with great force, both being armed with foremost of weapons.  The Pandavas, the Pancalas, and the other warriors, became spectators of that terrible encounter between the two heroes.  Those two heroes of the Vrishni-Andhaka race, like two elephants filled with delight, struck each other with long arrows and shafts equipped with calf-toothed heads.  Careering in diverse kinds of tracks, the son of Hridika and that bull of Sini’s race soon afflicted each other with showers of arrows.  The shafts sped with great force from the bows of the two Vrishni lions were seen by us in the welkin to resemble flights of swiftly coursing insects.  Then the son of Hridika, approaching Satyaki of true prowess, pierced the four steeds of the latter with four keen shafts.  The long-armed Satyaki, enraged at this, like an elephant struck with a lance, pierced Kritavarma with eight foremost of arrows.  Then Kritavarma pierced Satyaki with three arrows whetted on stone and sped from his bow drawn to its fullest and then cut off his bow with another arrow.  Laying aside his broken bow, that bull of Sini’s race quickly took up another with arrow fixed on it.  Having taken up that foremost of bows and stringed it, that foremost of all bowmen, that Atiratha of mighty energy and great intelligence and great strength, unable to endure the cutting of his bow by Kritavarma, and filled with fury, quickly rushed against the latter.  With ten keen shafts that bull of Sini’s race then struck the driver, the steeds, and the standard of Kritavarma.  At this, O king, the great bowman

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The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.