of all mighty bowmen, became highly angry with Partha and especially with Krishna.  The valiant Aswatthaman, then, staying resolutely on his car, touched water and invoked the Agneya weapon incapable of being resisted by the very gods.  Aiming at all his visible and invisible foes, the preceptor’s son, that slayer of hostile heroes, inspired with mantras a blazing shaft possessed of the effulgence of a smokeless fire, and let it off on all sides, filled with rage.  Dense showers of arrows then issued from it in the welkin.  Endued with fiery flames, those arrows encompassed Partha on all sides.  Meteors flashed down from the firmament.  A thick gloom suddenly shrouded the (Pandava) host.  All the points of the compass also were enveloped by that darkness.  Rakshasas and Pisachas, crowding together, uttered fierce cries.  Inauspicious winds began to blow.  The sun himself no longer gave any heat.  Ravens fiercely croaked on all sides.  Clouds roared in the welkin, showering blood.  Birds and beasts and kine, and Munis of high vows and souls under complete control, became exceedingly uneasy.  The very elements seemed to be perturbed.  The sun seemed to turn.  The universe, scorched with heat, seemed to be in a fever.  The elephants and other creatures of the land, scorched by the energy of that weapon, ran in fright, breathing heavily and desirous of protection against that terrible force.  The very waters heated, the creatures residing in that element, O Bharata, became exceedingly uneasy and seemed to burn.  From all the points of the compass, cardinal and subsidiary, from the firmament and the very earth, showers of sharp and fierce arrows fell and issued with the impetuosity of Garuda or the wind.  Struck and burnt by those shafts of Aswatthaman that were all endued with the impetuosity of the thunder, the hostile warriors fell down like trees burnt down by a raging fire.  Huge elephants, burnt by that weapon, fell down on the earth all around, uttering fierce cries loud as the rumblings of the clouds.  Other huge elephants, scorched by that fire, ran hither and thither, and roared aloud in fear, as if in the midst of a forest conflagration.  The steeds, O king, and the cars also, burnt by the energy of that weapon, looked, O sire, like the tops of trees burnt in a forest-fire.  Thousands of cars fell down on all sides.  Indeed, O Bharata, it seemed that the divine lord Agni burnt the (Pandava) host in that battle, like the Samvarta fire consuming everything at the end of the Yuga.

’Beholding the Pandava army thus burning in that dreadful battle, thy soldiers, O king, filled with joy, uttered leonine shouts.  Indeed, the combatants, desirous of victory and filled with joy, speedily blew thousands of trumpets, O Bharata, of diverse kinds.  Darkness having enveloped the world during that fierce battle, the entire Pandava army, with Savyasachin, the son of Panda, could not be seen.  We had never before, O king, heard of or seen the like of that weapon which Drona’s