my vast host.  The Self-create Brahma himself, if desirous of slaying it, cannot annihilate it.  Having given up all hopes of a city, Yudhishthira craveth only five villages, affrighted, O lord, at the army I have assembled and at my power.  The belief thou entertainest in the prowess of Vrikodara, the son of Kunti, is unfounded.  O Bharata, thou knowest not the extent of my prowess.  There is none on earth equal to me in an encounter with the mace.  None have ever surpassed me in such an encounter, nor will any surpass me.  With devoted application and undergoing many privations, I have lived in my preceptor’s abode.  I have completed my knowledge and exercises there.  It is for this that I have no fear either of Bhima or of others.  When I humbly waited upon Sankarshana (my preceptor), blessed be thou, it was his firm conviction that Duryodhana hath no equal in the mace.  In battle I am Sankarshana’s equal, and in might there is none superior to me on earth.  Bhima will never be able to bear the blow of my mace in battle.  A single blow, O king, that I may wrathfully deal unto Bhima will certainly, O hero, carry him without delay to the abode of Yama.  O king, I wish to see Vrikodara mace in hand.  This hath been my long-cherished desire.  Struck in battle with my mace, Vrikodara, the son of Pritha, will fall dead on the ground, his limbs shattered.  Smitten with a blow of my mace, the mountains of Himavat may split into a hundred thousands fragments.  Vrikodra himself knoweth this truth, as also Vasudeva and Arjuna, that there is no one equal to Duryodhana in the use of mace.  Let thy fears, therefore, caused by Vrikodara. be dispelled, for I will certainly slay him in fierce conflict.  Do not, O king, give way to melancholy.  And after I have slain him, numerous car-warriors of equal or superior energy, will, O bull among the Bharatas, speedily throw Arjuna down.  Bhishma, Drona Kripa and Drona’s son, Karna and, Bhurisravas, Salya, the king of Pragjyotish, and Jayadratha, the king of the Sindhus,—­every one of these, O Bharata, is singly capable of slaying the Pandavas.  When united together, they will, within a moment, send Arjuna to the abode of Yama.  There, indeed, is no reason why the united army of all the kings will be incapable of vanquishing Dhananjaya singly.  A hundred times shrouded by immeasurable arrows shot by Bhishma and Drona and Drona’s son and Kripa, and deprived of strength, Partha will have to go unto Yama’s abode.  Our grandsire born of Ganga is, O Bharata, superior to Santanu himself.  Like unto a regenerate saint, and incapable of being withstood by the very celestials, he took his birth amongst men.  There is no slayer of Bhishma, O king, on earth, for his father, being gratified, gave him the boon,—­Thou shalt not die except when it is thy own wish.  And Drona took his birth in a water-pot from the regenerate saint Bharadwaja.  And from Drona hath taken birth his son, having a knowledge of the highest weapons.  And this the foremost