like the other kshatriyas that have fallen?  The foolish Duryodhana did not accept Yudhishthira’s constant advice, wholesome as medicine, against the propriety of battle.  Possessed of great renown, Partha, when begged for drink by Bhishma then lying on his arrowy bed, pierced the surface of the earth!  Beholding the jet of water caused by the son of Pandu, the mighty-armed (Bhishma, addressing Duryodhana), said, “O sire, make peace with the Pandavas!  Hostilities ceasing, peace will be thine!  Let the war between thyself and thy cousins end with me!  Enjoy the earth in brotherliness with the sons of Pandu!” Having disregarded those counsels, my child is certainly repenting now.  That has now come to pass which Bhishma of great foresight said.  As regards myself, O Sanjaya, I am destitute of counsellors and reft of sons!  In consequence of gambling, I am fallen into great misery like a bird shorn of its wings!  As children engaged in sport, O Sanjaya, having seized a bird and cut off its wings, merrily release it, but the creature cannot achieve locomotion in consequence of its winglessness; even so have I become, like a bird shorn of its wings!  Weak, destitute of every resource, without kinsmen and deprived of relatives and friends, cheerless and overpowered by enemies, to which point of the compass shall I go?  He who vanquished all the Kambojas and the Amvashthas with the Kaikeyas, that puissant one, who, having for the accomplishment of his purpose vanquished the Gandharas and the Videhas in battle, subjugated the whole Earth for the sake of Duryodhana’s aggrandisement, alas, he hath been vanquished by the heroic and strong Pandavas endued with mighty arms!  Upon the slaughter, in battle, of that mighty bowman, Karna, by the diadem-decked (Arjuna), tell me, O Sanjaya, who were these heroes that stayed (on the field)!  I hope he was not alone and abandoned (by friends) when slain in battle by the Pandavas?  Thou hast, O sire, told me, before this, how our brave warriors have fallen.  With his powerful shafts Shikhandi felled in battle that foremost of all wielders of weapons, viz., Bhishma, who did nothing to repel the attack.  Similarly, Sanjaya, Drupada’s son Dhrishtadyumna, uplifting his scimitar, slew the mighty bowman Drona who, already pierced with many arrows, had laid aside his weapons in battle and devoted himself to Yoga.  These two were both slain at a disadvantage and especially by deceit.  Even this is what I have heard about the slaughter of Bhishma and Drona!  Indeed, Bhishma and Drona, while contending in fight, were incapable of being slain in battle by the wielder of the thunderbolt himself by fair means.  This that I tell thee is the truth!  As regards Karna, how, indeed, could Death touch him, that hero equal unto Indra himself, while he was engaged in shooting his manifold celestial weapons?  He unto whom in exchange for his earrings, Purandara had given that foe slaying, gold-decked, and celestial dart of the splendour of lightning,—­he