in that battle.  And each of them, O king, pierced thy son with three shafts.  Thy son also, invincible in battle, pierced each of the sons of Draupadi, O monarch, with sharp shafts.  And pierced by them (in return) and bathed in blood, he shone like a hill with rillets of water mixed with red-chalk (gliding down its breast).  And the mighty Bhishma also, in that battle, O king, afflicted the Pandava army like a herdsman belabouring his herd.  Then, O monarch, the twang of Gandiva was heard, of Partha, who was engaged in slaughtering the foe on the right of the army.

And in that part of the field headless trunks stood up by thousands, amongst the troops, O Bharata, of both the Kauravas and the Pandavas.  And the field of battle resembled an ocean whose water was blood, and whose eddies were the shafts (shot by the combatants).  And the elephants constituted the islands of that ocean, and the steeds its waves.  And cars constituted the boats by which brave men crossed it.  And many brave combatants, with arms cut off, divested of armour, and hideously mutilated, were seen lying there in hundreds and thousands.  And with the bodies of infuriate elephants deprived of life and bathed in blood, the field of battle.  O Bharata, looked as if strewn with hills.  And the wonderful sight we saw there, O Bharata, was that neither in their army nor in thine was a single person that was unwilling to fight.  And thus, O monarch, did those brave warriors, of both thy army and the Pandavas, fight, seeking glory and desirous of victory.”

SECTION LXXX

Sanjaya said, “Then when the sun assumed a red hue, king Duryodhana, desirous of battle, rushed towards Bhima from desire of slaying him.  Beholding that heroic warrior cherishing deep animosity (thus) coming towards him, Bhimasena, excited with great wrath, said these words,—­’That hour hath come which I have desired for so many years.  I will slay thee to-day if thou dost not abandon the battle.  Slaying thee I shall today dispel the sorrows of Kunti as also of Draupadi and the woes that were ours during our exile in the woods.  Filled with pride, thou hadst formerly humiliated the sons of Pandu.  Behold, O son of Gandhari, the dire fruit of that sinful behaviour.  Following the counsels of Karna as also of Suvala’s son, and recking the Pandavas little, thou hadst formerly behaved towards them as thou hadst hinted.  Thou hadst also disregarded Krishna who begged thee (for peace).  With a joyous heart didst thou despatch Uluka (to us) with thy messages.  For all these, I shall slay thee to-day with all thy kinsmen, and thus avenge all those offences of thine of former days.’  Having said these words, Bhima bending his bow and stretching it repeatedly, and taking up a number of terrible shafts whose effulgence resembled that of the lightning itself, and filled with wrath, quickly sped six and thirty of them at Duryodhana.  And those shafts resembled the flames of a blazing