began to consume both armies.  Siddhas, moving there, O monarch, said these words, “O lord, this battle is the foremost of all battles.  Any battle (fought before) does not come up to even a sixteenth part of this.  A battle like this will never occur again.  Both these persons, viz., this brahmana and this kshatriya, are endued with knowledge.  Both are possessed of courage, and both are fierce in prowess.  Dreadful is the might of Bhima, and wonderful is the skill of the other in weapons.  How great is their energy and how wonderful the skill possessed by both!  Both of them stand in this battle like two universe-destroying Yamas at the end of the Yuga.  They are born like two Rudras or like two Suns.  These two tigers among men, both endued with terrible forms, are like two Yamas in this battle.”  Such were the words of the Siddhas heard there every moment.  And among the assembled denizens of heaven there arose a leonine roar.  Beholding the amazing and inconceivable feats of the two warriors in that battle, the dense throngs of Siddhas, and Charanas were filled with wonder.  And the gods, the Siddhas, and the great Rishis applauded them both saying, “Excellent, O mighty-armed son of Drona.  Excellent, O Bhima.”  Meanwhile those two heroes, in that battle, O king, having done injuries to each other, glared at each other with eyes rolling in rage.  With eyes red in rage, their lips also quivered in rage.  And they grinded their teeth in wrath and bit their lips.  And those two great car-warriors covered each other with showers of arrows, as if they were in that battle two masses of clouds that poured torrents of arrows for rain and that gleamed with weapons constituting their lightning.  Having pierced each other’s standards and drivers in that great battle, and having also pierced each other’s steeds, they continued to strike each other.  Then, O monarch, filled with rage, they took up in that dreadful encounter, two arrows, and each desirous of slaying the other shot quickly at his foe.  Those two blazing arrows, resistless and endued with the force of thunder, coming, O king, to the two warriors as they stood at the head of their respective divisions, struck them both.  Each of the two mighty combatants then deeply struck with those arrows, sank, on the terrace of their respective car.  Understanding the son of Drona to be insensible, his driver then bore him away from the battle-field, O king, in the sight of all the troops.  Similarly, O king, Bhima’s driver bore away from the battle-field on his car, the son of Pandu, that scorcher of foes, who was repeatedly falling into a swoon.’”

16

“Dhritarashtra said, ’Describe to me the battle of Arjuna with the samsaptakas, and of the other kings with the Pandavas.  Narrate to me also, O Sanjaya, the battle of Arjuna with Ashvatthama, and of the other lords of the Earth with Partha.’