Sanjaya said, “Inviting Kritavarma, as also the mighty car-warrior Kripa, Drona’s son, filled with rage, approached the gate of the camp.  He there beheld a being of gigantic frame, capable of making the very hair stand on end, and possessed of the effulgence of the Sun or the Moon, guarding the entrance.  Round his loins was a tiger-skin dripping with blood, and he had a black deer for his upper garment.  He had for his sacred thread a large snake.  His arms were long and massive and held many kinds of uplifted weapons.  He had for his angadas a large snake wound round his upper arm.  His mouth seemed to blaze with flames of fire.  His teeth made his face terrible to behold.  His mouth was open and dreadful.  His face was adorned with thousands of beautiful eyes.  His body was incapable of being described, as also his attire.  The very mountains, upon beholding him, would split into a 1,000 fragments.  Blazing flames of fire seemed to issue from his mouth and nose and ears and all those thousands of eyes.  From those blazing flames hundreds and thousands of Hrishikeshas issued, armed with conchs and discs and maces.

Beholding that extraordinary being capable of inspiring the whole world with terror, Drona’s son, without feeling any agitation, covered him with showers of celestial weapons.  That being, however, devoured all those shafts shot by Drona’s son.  Like the vadava fire devouring the waters of the ocean, that being devoured the shafts sped by the son of Drona.  Beholding his arrowy showers prove fruitless, Ashvatthama hurled at him a long dart blazing like a flame of fire.  That dart of blazing point, striking against that being, broke into pieces like a huge meteor at the end of the yuga breaking and falling down from the firmament after striking against the Sun.  Ashvatthama then, without losing a moment, drew from its sheath an excellent scimitar of the colour of the sky and endued with a golden hilt.  The scimitar came out like a blazing snake from its hole.  The intelligent son of Drona then hurled that excellent scimitar at that being.  The weapon, approaching that being, disappeared within his body like a mongoose disappearing in its hole.  Filled with rage, the son of Drona then hurled a blazing mace of the proportions of a pole set up in honour of Indra.  The being devoured that mace also.

At last, when all his weapons were exhausted Ashvatthama, casting his eyes around, beheld the whole firmament densely crowded with images of Janardana.  Drona’s son, divested of weapons, beholding that wonderful sight, recollected the words of Kripa, and turning pale with grief, said, “He that listens not to the beneficial words of advising friends is obliged to repent, being overwhelmed with calamity, even as my foolish self for having disregarded my two well-wishers.  That fool who, disregarding the way pointed out by the scriptures, seeketh to slay his enemies, falleth off from the path of righteousness and is lost in the