weapon, the very birds were unable to range in their element, a delicious wind then blew, bearing fragrant odours.  Laughing the while, Partha forcibly struck Shalya’s armour with ten arrows.  Piercing Karna next with a dozen shafts, he struck him once more with seven.  Deeply struck with those winged arrows of fierce energy shot with great force from Partha’s bow, Karna, with mangled limbs and body bathed in blood, looked resplendent like Rudra at the universal destruction, sporting in the midst of crematorium at noon or eve, his body dyed with blood.  The son of Adhiratha then pierced Dhananjaya who resembled the chief of the celestials himself (in energy and might) with three arrows, and he caused five other blazing arrows resembling five snakes to penetrate the body of Krishna.  Shot with great force, those arrows, decked with gold, pierced through the armour of that foremost of beings and passing out of his body fell upon the earth.  Endued with great energy, they entered the earth with great force and having bathed (in the waters of the Bhogavati in the nether region) coursed back towards Karna.  Those shafts were five mighty snakes that had adopted the side of Takshaka’s son (Aswasena whose mother Partha had slain at Khandava).  With ten broad-headed arrows shot with great force, Arjuna cut off each of those five snakes into three fragments whereupon they fell down on the earth.  Beholding Krishna’s limbs thus mangled with those snakes transformed into arrows sped from Karna’s arms, Arjuna, decked with diadem and garlands, blazed up with wrath like a fire engaged in burning a heap of dry grass.  He then pierced Karna in all his vital limbs with many blazing and fatal shafts shot from the bow-string stretched to the very ear. (Deeply pierced), Karna trembled in pain.  With the greatest difficulty he stood, summoning all his patience.  Dhananjaya having been filled with wrath, all the points of the compass, cardinal and subsidiary, the very splendour of the Sun, and Karna’s car, O king, all became invisible with the showers shot by him.  The welkin seemed as if it were shrouded by a thick forest.  Then that slayer of foes, that bull of Kuru’s race, that foremost of heroes, viz., Savyasaci, O king, soon slew in that battle 2,000 foremost of Kuru warriors, with their cars and steeds and drivers, forming the protectors of Karna’s car-wheels and wings and his van-guard and rear-guard and who constituted the very pick of Duryodhana’s car-force, and who, urged by Duryodhana, had been fighting with great energy.  Then thy sons and the Kauravas that were still alive fled away, deserting Karna, and abandoning their dying and wounded, and their wailing sons and sires.  Beholding himself abandoned by the terrified Kurus and seeing the space around him empty, Karna felt no agitation, O Bharata, but, on the other hand, rushed at Arjuna, with a cheerful heart.’”

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