While the camp was in this state, rakshasas, O king, uttered loud roars in joy, O chief of the Bharatas!  The loud noise, O king, uttered by ghostly beings in joy, filled all the points of the compass and the welkin.  Hearing the wails of woe, elephants, steeds, breaking their cords, rushed hither and thither, crushing the combatants in the camp.  As those animals rushed hither and thither, the dust raised by them made the night doubly dark.  When that thick gloom set in, the warriors in the camp became perfectly stupefied; sires recognised not their sons, brothers recognised not their brothers.  Elephants assailing riderless elephants, and steeds assailing riderless steeds, assailed and broke and crushed the people that stood in their way.  Losing all order, combatants rushed and slew one another, and felling those that stood in their way, crushed them into pieces.  Deprived of their senses and overcome with sleep, and enveloped in gloom, men, impelled by fate, slew their own comrades.  The guards, leaving the gates they watched, and those at duty at the outposts leaving the posts they guarded, fled away for their lives, deprived of their senses and not knowing whither they proceeded.  They slew one another, the slayers, O lord, not recognising the slain.  Afflicted by Fate, they cried after their sires and sons.  While they fled, abandoning their friends and relatives, they called upon one another, mentioning their families and names.  Other, uttering cries of “Oh!” and “Alas!” fell down on the earth.  In the midst of the battle, Drona’s son, recognising them, slew them all.

Other kshatriyas, while being slaughtered, lost their senses, and afflicted by fear, sought to fly away from their camps.  Those men that sought to fly away from their camp for saving their lives, were slain by Kritavarma and Kripa at the gate.  Divested of weapons and instruments and armour, and with dishevelled hair, they joined their hands.  Trembling with fear, they were on the ground.  The two Kuru warriors, however, (who were on their cars) gave quarter to none.  None amongst those that escaped from the camp was let off by those two wicked persons, Kripa and Kritavarma.  Then again, for doing that which was highly agreeable to Drona’s son, those two set fire to the Pandava camp in three places.

When the camp was lighted, Ashvatthama, that delighter of his sires, O monarch, careered, sword in hand and smiting his foes with great skill.  Some of his brave foes rushed towards him and some ran hither and thither.  That foremost of regenerate ones, with his sword, deprived all of them of their lives.  The valiant son of Drona, filled with rage, felled some of the warriors, cutting them in twain with his sword as if they were sesame stalks.  The Earth, O bull of Bharata’s race, became strewn with the fallen bodies of the foremost of men and steeds and elephants mingled together and uttering woeful wails and cries.  When thousands of men had fallen