race destroyed them all like the Sun destroying a thick fog.  After this the son of Pandu once more pierced with his fierce shafts, the samsaptakas with their steeds, drivers, cars, elephants, standards and foot-soldiers.  Every one of those that stood there as spectators, every one of those that were stationed there on foot or car or steed or elephant, regarded himself as shrouded by the arrows of Arjuna.  Shot from Gandiva, those winged arrows of diverse forms slew in that battle elephants and steeds and men whether stationed in his immediate front or at the distance of two miles.  The trunks, cut off with broad-headed shafts, of elephants, down whose cheeks and other limbs flowed the juice indicative of excitement, fell down like tall trees in the forest struck down with the axe.  A little after down fell elephants, huge as hillocks, with their riders, like mountains crushed by Indra with his thunder.  With his shafts cutting into minute portions well-equipped cars that looked like dissolving edifices of vapour in the evening sky and unto which were yoked well-trained steeds of great speed and which were ridden by warriors invincible in battle, the son of Pandu continued to shower his arrows on his enemies.  And Dhananjaya continued to slay well-decked horsemen and foot-soldiers of the foe.  Indeed, Dhananjaya, resembling the very Sun as he rises at the end of the Yuga, dried up the samsaptaka ocean incapable of being dried up easily, by means of keen arrows constituting his rays.  Without losing a moment, the son of Pandu once more pierced Drona’s son resembling a huge hill, with shafts of great impetuosity and the splendour of the Sun, like the wielder of the thunderbolt piercing a mountain with the thunder.  Desirous of battle, the preceptor’s son then, filled with rage, approached Arjuna for piercing him and his steeds and drivers by means of his swiftly coursing shafts.  Arjuna, however, quickly cut off the shafts shot at him by Ashvatthama.  The son of Pandu then filled with great wrath, proffered unto Ashvatthama, that desirable guest, quivers upon quivers of arrows, like a charitable person offering everything in his house unto a guest.  Leaving the samsaptakas then the son of Pandu rushed towards Drona’s son like a donor abandoning unworthy guests, for proceeding towards one that is worthy.”

17

“Sanjaya said, ’Then occurred that battle between Arjuna and Ashvatthama resembling the planets Shukra and Brihaspati in splendour, like the battle between Shukra and Brihaspati in the firmament for entering the same constellation.  Afflicting each other with blazing shafts that constituted their rays, those terrifiers of the world stood like two planets both deviating from their orbits.  Then Arjuna deeply pierced Ashvatthama with a shaft in the midst of his eyebrows.  With that shaft the son of Drona looked resplendent like the Sun with upward rays.  The two Krishnas (Nara and Narayana), also deeply afflicted by Ashvatthama with hundreds of arrows,