All preparations finished, the Great War (Mahabharata) began, the two families pitted against each other meeting on the plain of Kurukshetra (the modern Panipat) where the battle was fought.  After many speeches, and after erecting fortifications which bristled with defences and were liberally stocked with jars of scorpions, hot oil, and missiles, the two parties drew up rules of battle, which neither was to infringe under penalty of incurring the world’s execration.

Even nature now showed by unmistakable signs that a terrible conflict was about to take place, and when the two armies—­which the Hindus claim numbered several billion men—­came face to face, Krishna delayed the fight long enough to recite with Arjuna a dialogue of eighteen cantos called the Bhagavad-gita, or Divine Song, which contains a complete system of Indian religious philosophy.

The Pandavs, having besought the aid of the monkeys, were informed they would derive great benefit by bearing a monkey banner, so it was armed with this standard that they marched on to victory.

  The sons of Pandu marked the coming storm
  And swift arrayed their force.  The chief divine
  And Arjuna at the king’s request
  Raised in the van the ape-emblazoned banner,
  The host’s conducting star, the guiding light
  That cheered the bravest heart, and as it swept
  The air, it warmed each breast with martial fires.

Throughout the war the Pandav forces were directed by the same general, but their opponents had four.  A moment after the first collision, the sky was filled with whistling arrows, while the air resounded with the neighing of horses and the roaring of elephants; the plain shook, and clouds of dust, dimming the light of the sun, formed a heavy pall, beneath which Pandavs and Kurus struggled in deadly fight.  This frightful conflict lasted eighteen days, the battle always stopping at sunset, to enable the combatants to recover their strength.

  And ever and anon the thunder roared,
  And angry lightnings flashed across the gloom,
  Or blazing meteors fearful shot to earth. 
  Regardless of these awful signs, the chiefs
  Pressed on to mutual slaughter, and the peal
  Of shouting hosts commingling shook the world.

The Kurus’ general, Bhishma, fell on the tenth day,—­after a terrible fight with Arjuna,—­riddled with so many arrows that his body could not touch the ground.  Although mortally wounded, he lay in this state, his head supported by three arrows, for fifty-eight days, and was thus able to bestow good advice on those who came to consult him.

  Darker grew the gloomy midnight, and the princes went their way;
  On his bed of pointed arrows, Bhishma lone and dying lay.

He was succeeded as leader of the Kurus by the tutor Drona, who during his five days’ generalship proved almost invincible.  But, some one suggesting that his courage would evaporate should he hear his son was dead, a cry arose in the Pandav ranks that Aswathaman had perished!  Unable to credit this news, Drona called to the eldest Pandav—­who was strictly truthful—­to know whether it was so, and heard him rejoin it was true in regard to the elephant by that name, but not of the man.