irresistible in battle, and the eldest of five brothers, rushed against him.  Shooting many keen shafts, he greatly afflicted the preceptor, like a mighty mass of clouds pouring torrents of rain on the mountain of Gandhamadana.  Then Drona, O king, excited with wrath sped at him five and ten shafts whetted on stone and equipped with wings of gold.  The prince of the Kekayas, however, cheerfully cut off every one of those shafts shot by Drona, and which resembled angry snakes of virulent poison, with five shafts of his own.  Beholding that lightness of hand displayed by him that bull among Brahmanas, then, sped at him eight straight shafts.  Seeing those shafts shot from Drona’s bow, swiftly coursing towards him, Vrihatkshatra in that battle resisted them with as many sharp shafts of his.  Beholding that exceedingly difficult feat achieved by Vrihatkshatra, thy troops, O king, were filled with amazement.  Then Drona, O monarch, applauding Vrihatkshatra, invoked into existence the irresistible and celestial weapon called Brahma in that battle.  The prince of the Kekayas, seeing it shot by Drona in battle, baffled that Brahma weapon, O monarch, by a Brahma weapon of his own.  After that weapon had been thus baffled, Vrihatkshatra, O Bharata, pierced the Brahmana with sixty shafts whetted on stone and equipped with wings of gold.  Then Drona, that foremost of men, pierced the prince of the Kekayas with a powerful shaft which, penetrating through the latter’s armour, (passed through his body and) entered the earth.  As a black cobra, O best of kings, pierces through an ant-hill, even so did that shafts enter the earth, having pierced through the body of the Kekaya prince in that battle.  Deeply pierced, O monarch, with the shafts of Drona, the prince of the Kekayas, filled with rage, and rolling his beautiful eyes, pierced Drona with seventy arrows whetted on stone and equipped with wings of gold.  And with another arrow he greatly afflicted Drona’s charioteer in this very vitals.  Pierced by Vrihatkshatra, O sire, with arrows, Drona shot showers of keen shafts at the car of the Prince of the Kekayas.  Depriving the mighty car-warrior, Vrihatkshatra, of his coolness, Drona then, with four-winged arrows, slew the four steeds of the former.  With another arrow he felled Vrihatkshatra’s charioteer from his niche in the car.  And felling on the earth, with two other arrows, his enemy’s standard and umbrella, that bull among Brahmanas, with a third shaft well-shot from his bow, pierced Vrihatkshatra himself in the chest.  Thereupon, the latter, thus struck in the chest, fell down from his car.

“Upon the slaughter, O king, of Vrihatkshatra, that mighty car-warrior among the Kaikeyas, the son of Sisupala, filled with rage, addressed his charioteer, saying, ’O charioteer, proceed to the spot where Drona stayeth, clad in armour and engaged in slaying the Kaikeya and the Panchala hosts.’  Hearing these words of his, the charioteer soon took that foremost of car-warriors unto Drona, by means of those