Vaisampayana continued, “Hearing these words of Dhananjaya, the son of Virata urged, without a moment’s delay, those steeds of silvery hue decked in golden armour.  And making them adopt, one after another, every kind of the swifter paces, he urged those fiery steeds resembling the moon in colour.  And versed in horse-lore, Uttara, having approached the Kuru host, turned back those steeds endued with the speed of the wind.  And skilled in guiding vehicles, the prince of Matsya, sometimes wheeling about, and sometimes proceeding in circular mazes, and sometimes turning to the left, began to be wilder than the Kurus.  And wheeling round, the intrepid and mighty son of Virata at last approached the car of Kripa, and stood confronting him.  Then announcing his own name, Arjuna powerfully blew that best of conchs called Devadatta, of loud blare.  And blown on the field of battle by the mighty Jishnu, the blare of that conch was heard like the splitting of a mountain.  And seeing that the conch did not break into a hundred fragments when blown by Arjuna, the Kurus with all their warriors began to applaud it highly.  And having reached the very heavens, that sound coming back was heard even like the crash of the thunderbolt hurled by Maghavat on the mountain breast.  Thereupon that heroic and intrepid and mighty car-warrior, Saradwat’s son Kripa, endued with strength and prowess, waxing wroth at Arjuna, and unable to bear that sound and eager for fight, took up his own sea-begotten conch and blew it vehemently.  And filling the three worlds with that sound, that foremost of car-warriors took up a large bow and twanged the bow-string powerfully.  And those mighty car-warriors, equal unto two suns, standing opposed to each other, shone like two masses of autumnal clouds.  Then Saradwat’s son quickly pierced Partha, that slayer of hostile heroes, with ten swift and whetted arrows capable of entering into the very vitals.  And Pritha’s son also, on his part, drawing that foremost of weapons, the Gandiva, celebrated over the world, shot innumerable iron-arrows, all capable of penetrating into the very core of the body.  Thereupon Kripa, by means of whetted shafts, cut into hundreds and thousands of fragments, those blood-drinking arrows of Partha before they could come up.  Then that mighty car-warrior, Partha also, in wrath displaying various manoeuvres, covered all sides with a shower of arrows.  And covering the entire welkin with his shafts, that mighty warrior of immeasurable soul, the son of Pritha, enveloped Kripa with hundreds of shafts.  And sorely afflicted by those whetted arrows resembling flames of fire, Kripa waxed wroth and quickly afflicting the high-souled Partha of immeasurable prowess with ten thousand shafts, set up on the field of battle a loud roar.  Then the heroic Arjuna quickly pierced the four steeds of his adversary with four fatal arrows shot from the Gandiva, sharp and straight, and furnished with golden wings.