novelraw Arc 3 – Yudha Arambha Parva - Chapter 2 - The Joining of Allies
Arc 3 – Yudha Arambha Parva - Chapter 2 - The Joining of Allies
Sañjaya continued:
Having received the blessings of his elders—Bhīṣma, Droṇa, Kṛpa, and Śalya—the king of righteousness, shining like Dharma incarnate, returned to his host.
At that time Vāsudeva, ever mindful of the welfare of the sons of Pāṇḍu, went unto Karṇa, the son of Rādhā, and spoke in gentle counsel.
“O Karṇa,” said Kṛṣṇa, “I have heard that thou, out of hatred for Bhīṣma, wilt not fight while he liveth.
Come then to our side till the grandsire falls.
When Bhīṣma is slain, return if thou wilt to Duryodhana’s cause.
So shall thy honour remain unstained.”
But Karṇa, steadfast in his vow, answered:
“Never shall I forsake the son of Dhṛtarāṣṭra.
My life and fame are bound to him.
For his sake I have cast away all else.
Ask me not again, O Keśava.”
Hearing these words, Kṛṣṇa, discerning the immovable firmness of Karṇa’s heart, turned back and rejoined the sons of Pāṇḍu.
Then, O king, Yudhiṣṭhira lifted his voice amid both armies and declared aloud:
“He who chooseth us—him shall we also choose for our ally!”
And from among Dhṛtarāṣṭra’s sons, Yuyutsu, pure in spirit and just in heart, came forth with joy and said:
“O king, I will fight on thy side,
For the sake of righteousness and kinship.
Accept me, O son of Dharma.”
Yudhiṣṭhira answered with grace:
“Come, O prince of noble soul.
With us thou shalt stand in battle.
On thee, it seems, rests the thread of Dhṛtarāṣṭra’s line
And the merit of his fathers’ rites.
Accept us as we accept thee;
And when Duryodhana’s fury falls,
Justice shall be avenged.”
The Armies Stir for War
Sañjaya said:
Then Yuyutsu, forsaking the Kaurava ranks, crossed over with beating drums and sounding cymbals, joining the army of the sons of Pāṇḍu.
And Yudhiṣṭhira, filled with joy, donned once more his golden mail, gleaming like fire in the dawn.
The Pāṇḍava host rose in splendour; the kings around them re-formed their battle array, and the earth trembled with the sound of countless drums and trumpets.
Roars of lions burst from their throats as banners streamed like tongues of flame.
The noble ones who had honoured their elders were praised by all the assembled monarchs.
Men spoke among themselves, saying:
“Behold the sons of Dharma—how they bow to those deserving of honour!
Their reverence shines brighter than their arms.”
And all who beheld—Ārya and Mleccha alike—felt their hearts moved to tears, beholding that nobility of soul.
Then, with conches white as cow’s milk and drums like rolling thunder, the sons of Pāṇḍu prepared for the dawn of war.
Thus ended the reverence of Yudhiṣṭhira,
Who bowed before duty ere he took up arms.
For he sought not victory through pride or power,
But through righteousness—the path of Dharma itself.
The First Clash of Kurukṣetra
Dhṛtarāṣṭra said:
“When both my sons’ divisions and those of the Pāṇḍavas stood arrayed for war, tell me, O Sanjaya, who struck first—the Kurus or the sons of Pāṇḍu?”
The Stirring of the Armies
Sañjaya said:
At the words of his elder brother, thy son Duḥśāsana, proud and fierce, advanced with his division, Bhīṣma the grandsire leading them like the mountain that fronts the storm.
From the other side came the sons of Pāṇḍu, eager-hearted and radiant, Bhīmasena in their van, his roar shaking the hearts of men.
The armies, vast as worlds, moved forward like opposing seas drawn together by fate.
Conches blared, kettledrums thundered, and tabors beat; cow-horns moaned like winds through caverned hills.
Lion-shouts burst from countless throats, and the tumult rose like a storm over the earth.
The clash of arms was as the meeting of oceans,
The neigh of steeds like winds of heaven,
The trumpeting of elephants like thunder,
And men’s cries like the waves that dash on rock.
The banners of kings fluttered like meteors, and the earth quaked beneath the tread of armoured hosts.
The hosts of the Kurus and the sons of Pāṇḍu, filled with wrath, rushed toward each other with deafening cries, and the sky echoed with the tumult of the clash.
Conches and cymbals, mingled with the groans of elephants and neighing of chargers, created a din that shook the hearts of heroes.
The world itself seemed swallowed by the sound.
The Roar of Bhīmasena
Then, O King, amidst that sea of noise, the mighty-armed Bhīma roared—deep, fierce, and terrible—as a bull that bellows to the storm.
His voice rose above the tumult of drums and conches, above the neigh of chargers and the thunder of wheels.
His roar rolled like the clouds of Indra,
His breath like wind before rain;
The hearts of men trembled to hear it,
And beasts cast their seed and dung in terror.
Even the elephants of thy host, hearing that sound, quaked and shrieked; their riders turned pale as death.
The sons of Dhṛtarāṣṭra felt fear enter their hearts as the lion-hearted Bhīma fell upon them, eyes blazing like twin suns.
The Kaurava Response
Then thy sons—Duryodhana, Duḥśāsana, Durmukha, Duḥsaha, Durmarṣaṇa, Vivingsati, Chitrasena, Vikarna, Purumitra, Jaya, Bhoja, and the valiant son of Somadatta—rose together like storm-clouds gathering.
Their bows flashed like lightning; their quivers poured forth arrows that gleamed like snakes newly sloughed.
They surrounded Bhīmasena, darkening him with shafts as the clouds veil the sun.
But the sons of Draupadī, the young heroes of fiery soul, Abhimanyu of the Vrishni race, Nakula and Sahadeva the twin warriors, and Dṛṣṭadyumna, son of Pṛṣata, rushed upon the sons of Dhṛtarāṣṭra.
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Their arrows tore through mail and banner, flashing like bolts of Indra cleaving mountain peaks.
Shafts met shafts in the sky,
Twanging strings wove nets of sound;
No warrior turned from battle—
All stood, all struck, all burned.
The air was filled with meteoric streaks of arrows, and the twang of bows never ceased.
The ground shook beneath charging elephants, and dust veiled the sun like the shadow of doom.
The Tempest of Combat
The combatants, remembering ancient wrongs and the shame of the dice, fought as if possessed by wrath itself.
Their blows were unerring; the disciples of Droṇa displayed such swiftness of hand that arrows seemed born from air.
Each shaft found its mark as if guided by fate.
The field glowed like a firmament ablaze with falling stars.
The Kurus and the Pāṇḍavas, kin turned foes,
Strove as storm and flame contend;
No man faltered, none turned back—
All fought till the sky turned red.
The two armies together resembled painted visions on the canvas of earth—terrible and splendid, filled with elephants, steeds, and cars.
Kings by the thousand, at Yudhiṣṭhira’s command, charged the Kaurava host, and the Kauravas countered under Bhīṣma’s banner.
The sun, veiled in the dust of countless hooves, cast only a dim, blood-red light upon that field of death.
The air resounded with the mingled cries of men and beasts, the clash of iron, and the blowing of conches.
Arrows were the crocodiles of that ocean,
Bows its coiling serpents,
Swords its leaping tortoises,
And men its surging waves.
Such was the din, O King, as if the actual sea had risen to devour the earth.
Bhīṣma Shines Above the Field
In that chaos of battle, O Dhṛtarāṣṭra, thy sire Bhīṣma shone supreme.
His banner of the silver palmtree streamed like the moon through the smoke of sacrifice; his chariot wheels blazed as suns.
Transcending all the hosts that swarmed around him, the grandsire gleamed like the sacred fire fed by ghee—terrible, eternal, and radiant.
Where Bhīṣma fought, dharma itself took form,
Where his arrows fell, the earth drank flame;
Above the clash and crimson storm,
His glory burned—an immortal name.
Thus began the great war, O King—
A battle of kinsmen, dreadful to behold,
Where the roar of Bhīma and the bow of Bhīṣma
Announced the end of an age.
The Awful Forenoon: The Field Ignites
Sañjaya said:
On the forenoon of that dreadful day, O King, the battle began—terrible, world-shaking, and pitiless to the bodies of kings.
Lion-shouts of the Kurus and the Śṛñjayas, each thirsty for victory, rolled across the welkin; conches blared, leathern bow-guards flapped, drums and tabors thundered, and the earth herself seemed to quiver beneath the uproar.
Elephant-bells jangled, iron hooks rang on skulls, bowstrings thrummed like a storm of bees, and the clatter of chariots roared as clouds in the monsoon.
Seas of steel surged and met,
Standards rose like flaming spears;
Fate let slip her tethered net—
And dawn grew old with warriors’ fears.
All the Kuru heroes, careless of life and sharpened in intent, rushed with raised standards upon the sons of Pāṇḍu.
Then Śāntanu’s son, the grandsire, lifted a bow dreadful as Yama’s rod and drove upon Dhanañjaya;
and Arjuna, energy incarnate, raised his unrivalled bow and sped to meet Gaṅgā’s son.
Tiger faced tiger—yet neither could make the other waver.
Pairings Across the Plain
Sātyaki sprang upon Kṛtavarman; their arrows crossed in shrieking braids till both shone, blood-bright, like twin kiṃśuka trees in full flame.
Abhimanyu closed with Vṛhadbala of Kośala; the Kosalan struck down the youth’s charioteer and standard, but the son of Subhadrā, wrath-stirred, answered with nine keen shafts—felling Vṛhadbala’s banner, wheel-guard, and driver in turn.
They circled, rending one another with unspent fury.
Bhīmasena met thy son Duryodhana—two tigers of the Kuru race—covering each other with showers of arrows. All creatures marvelled to see those masters of every mode of war.
Duḥśāsana rushed at Nakula and pierced him deep; the son of Mādrī laughed, cut away his foe’s standard and bow, and planted five-and-twenty small-headed shafts.
Yet thy valiant son, hard to conquer, slew Nakula’s steeds and struck down his banner.
Durmukha stormed at Sahadeva; the twin, unshaken, shot down his charioteer.
They pressed in close, each to unmake the other—terrible, unyielding, equal in wrath.
Yudhiṣṭhira met the king of the Madras. Śalya, in the king’s very sight, clove his bow in two.
The son of Kuntī cast it aside, took up a stronger, swifter limb, and with straight shafts veiled Śalya—crying, “Wait—wait!”
Bows sang like coiled serpents freed,
Cords bit palms through leathern guard;
Kings like mountains bled and swayed—
Dharma’s road grew iron-hard.
Dhr̥ṣṭadyumna charged Droṇa. The preceptor, wrathful, hewed the Pāñcāla’s hard bow and loosed a shaft like Death’s second rod; it sank into the prince’s flesh.
But the son of Drupada, taking another bow and fourteen arrows, struck Droṇa back, and the two fought on with rising blaze.
The impetuous Śaṅkha challenged Somadatta’s son; he pierced the warrior’s right arm and was in turn smitten on the shoulders.
Their contest flared like Devas and Dānavas clashing beneath a thunder-torn sky.
Dhr̥ṣṭaketu, king among Cedis, rushed at Vahlika, the very form of wrath.
They roared like maddened tuskers, their shafts falling like meteor rain; in that red exchange they seemed Aṅgāraka and Śukra in ominous approach.
Ghaṭotkaca hurled himself upon the Rākṣasa Alamvuṣa, even as Śakra struck at Vala in the elder war.
Ninety biting shafts the son of Bhīma drove home; Alamvuṣa’s straight arrows answered from many angles.
Mangled and gleaming, they shone like Indra and Vala in that primeval storm.
Śikhaṇḍin rushed at Aśvatthāman; the son of Droṇa pierced him first with a keen arrow and made him tremble.
Śikhaṇḍin’s counterstroke was swift and true; they traded many barbed replies.
Virāṭa, lord of a great division, sped at Bhagadatta.
Virāṭa’s shower fell thick as monsoon upon a mountain; Bhagadatta cloaked him in return, a cloud swallowing the risen sun.
Kṛpa, son of Śāradvata, engaged Vṛhadśatra of the Kaikeyas; both shrouded each other in shivering rain.
Their steeds slain, their bows hewn, they leapt to foot with swords—terrible and unmatched.
Drupada, chastiser of foes, went gladly to meet Jayadratha.
Three arrows the Sindhu-lord planted; Drupada returned the gift.
Their struggle pleased the eyes of all who watched, fierce as the dance of Śukra with Aṅgāraka.
Vikarna, thy son, sped against Sutasoma; though shafts fell thick, neither could unseat the other—an astonishment to the field.
Chekitāna, blazing for the Pāṇḍavas, stormed at Suśarman, tiger among men;
Suśarman’s first rain of arrows checked him, and Chekitāna, provoked, replied with the downpour of a bursting cloud.
Śakuni of great cunning leapt against Prativindhya, son of Yudhiṣṭhira, as a lion at a maddened tusker.
The prince, wrath alight, mangled Suvala’s son with keen heads—like Maghavat tearing a Dānava—yet Śakuni returned hard, marking him with many straight shafts.
Śrutakarman struck Sudakṣiṇa of Kāmboja; the Kāmboja lord pierced him first, but could not make him yield—he stood like Maināka anchoring the storm.
Exceedingly provoked, Śrutakarman riddled him in every limb.
Irāvān, son to Fālguni, thundered upon Śrutāyus; slaying his steeds with a cry, he drew praises from every watcher.
Then Śrutaseṇa, enraged, shattered the steeds of Fālguni’s son with a mace, and their battle burned anew.
Vinda and Anuvinda of Avanti set upon heroic Kuntibhoja and his son; unflinching amid many foes, they fought cool and sure.
A mace Anuvinda hurled; Kuntibhoja answered with an arrow-shower.
Each prince pierced the other’s heir, and wonder spread along the lines.
The Kekaya brothers met five Gandhāra princes at the head of their troops;
Virāvāhu, thy son, fought Uttara, son of Virāṭa—wounds traded swift for swift.
The lord of the Cedis pressed Ulūka; arrow met arrow till both were terribly mangled, neither yielding the ground.
Melee Without Edges
Chariots into chariots drove,
Elephant at elephant hurled;
Steeds crashed, foot met foot in troves—
Dust devoured the painted world.
For a brief span that wide contention gleamed—ordered, almost beautiful;
then rage broke ranks, and all became a single, seething storm.
Men on cars smote men on elephants, horsemen hewed at charioteers, foot-soldiers closed in snarling knots—place grappled place, and no boundary held.
Celestial Ṛṣis, Siddhas, and Cāraṇas hovered, beholding that vast and fearful strife, like the war of gods and Asuras renewed.
Thousands of elephants, thousands of cars, and immeasurable foot—O tiger among men—seemed to change their very nature in the press.
It was seen how cars, elephants, steeds, and infantry clashed again and again upon the selfsame ground, as if Time itself had halted to watch men spend their fates.
Bows were serpents, arrows sharks,
Swords were tortoises that bite;
In that ocean without marks,
Day went blind before the Night.