monarch, like a lady shaken with fear.  Car-warriors, mounting on their cars, rushed impetuously, attacking compeers by their thousands, O king, like crows seizing winged insects (in the air).  Similarly, mighty elephants with winy exudation down their bodies, pursuing similar elephants, encountered them, O Bharata, furiously.  So also, horsemen, coming upon horsemen, and foot-soldiers angrily encountered one another in that battle.  At dead of night, the sound of retreating and the rushing of troops and of those coming again to the encounter became deafening.  The blazing lamps also, placed on cars and elephants and steeds, seemed, O king, large meteors falling from the firmament.  That night, O chief of the Bharatas, lightened up by those lamps looked like day, O king, on the field of battle.  As the sun, encountering the thick gloom, destroys it completely, even so the thick gloom of the battle was destroyed by those blazing lamps.  Indeed, the welkin, the earth, the cardinal and the subsidiary points of the compass, enveloped by dust and darkness, became once more illuminated by that light.  The splendour of weapons and coats of mail, and of the jewels of illustrious heroes, became overshadowed, by the light of those blazing lamps.  During the progress of that fierce battle at night, none of the combatants, O Bharata, could know the warriors of his own side.  Sire, O chief of the Bharatas, slew son, and son, from ignorance, slew sire, and friend slew friend.  And relatives slew relatives, and maternal uncles slew sisters’ sons, and warriors slew warriors of their own side, and foes slew their own men, in that battle, O Bharata.  In that dreadful nocturnal encounter, O king, all fought furiously, ceasing to have any regard for one another.’”

SECTION CLXX

“Sanjaya said, ’In that fierce and terrible battle, Dhrishtadyumna, O king, proceeded against Drona.  Holding his formidable bow and repeatedly stretching his bowstring, the Panchala prince rushed towards Drona’s car decked with gold.  And as Dhrishtadyumna proceeded for accomplishing the destruction of Drona, the Panchalas and the Pandavas, O king, surrounded him.  Beholding Drona, that foremost of preceptors, thus assailed, thy son, resolutely contending in battle, protected Drona on all sides.  Then those two oceans of troops encountered each other on that night, looked like two terrible oceans lashed into fury by tempest, with all living creatures within them exceedingly agitated.  Then the prince of the Panchalas, O king, quickly pierced Drona in the chest with five arrows and uttered a leonine roar.  Drona, however, O Bharata, piercing his foe in return with five and twenty arrows in that battle, cut off, with another broad-headed arrow, his bright bow.  Forcibly pierced by Drona, O bull of Bharata’s race, Dhrishtadyumna, quickly casting aside his bow, bit his (nether) lip in rage.  Indeed, O monarch, the valiant Dhrishtadyumna, excited with wrath, took