and Janamejaya, and the enraged Yudhamanyu and Shikhandi,
uniting with Prishata’s son (Dhrishtadyumna)
and uttering loud roars, pierced Karna with many shafts.
Those five foremost of Pancala car-warriors rushed
against Karna otherwise called Vaikartana, but they
could not shake him off his car like the objects of
the senses failing to shake off the person of purified
soul from abstinence. Quickly cutting off their
bows, standards, steeds, drivers and banners, with
his shafts, Karna struck each of them with five arrows
and then uttered a loud roar like a lion, People then
became exceedingly cheerless, thinking that the very
earth, with her mountains and trees, might split at
the twang of Karna’s bow while that hero, with
shafts in hand touching the bow-string, was employed
in shooting at his assailants and slaying his foes.
Shooting his shafts with that large and extended bow
of his that resembled the bow of Sakra himself, the
son of Adhiratha looked resplendent like the sun,
with his multitude of blazing rays, within his corona.
The Suta’s son then pierced Shikhandi with a
dozen keen shafts, and Uttamauja with half a dozen,
and Yudhamanyu with three, and then each of the other
two, viz., Somaka (Janamejaya) and Prishata’s
son (Dhrishtadyumna) with three shafts. Vanquished
in dreadful battle by the Suta’s son, O sire,
those five mighty car-warriors then stood inactive,
gladdening their foes, even as the objects of the
senses are vanquished by a person of purified soul.
The five sons of Draupadi then, with other well-equipped
cars, rescued those maternal uncles of theirs that
were sinking in the Karna ocean, like persons rescuing
from the depths of the ocean ship-wrecked merchants
in the sea by means of other vessels. Then that
bull among the Sinis, cutting off with his own keen
shafts the innumerable arrows sped by Karna, and piercing
Karna himself with many keen arrows made entirely of
iron, pierced thy eldest son with eight shafts.
Then Kripa, and the Bhoja chief (Kritavarma), and
thy son, and Karna himself, assailed Satyaki in return
with keen shafts. That foremost one, however,
of Yadu’s race fought with those four warriors
like the chief of the Daityas fighting with the Regents
of the (four) quarters. With his twanging bow
stretched to its fullest limits, and from which shafts
flowed incessantly, Satyaki became exceedingly irresistible
like the meridian Sun in the autumnal sky. Those
scorchers of foes then, viz., the mighty car-warriors
among the Pancalas, once more riding on their cars
and clad in mail and united together, protected that
foremost one among the Sinis, like the Maruts protecting
Sakra while engaged in afflicting his foes in battle.
The battle fraught with the slaughter of men and steeds
and elephants that then ensued between thy foes and
the warriors of thy army, became so fierce that it
resembled the encounter in days of old between the
gods and the Asuras. Car-warriors and elephants
and steeds and foot-soldiers, covered with showers