novelraw Arc 4 - Bhisma-Vadha Parva - Chapter 16 - Battles On the Tenth Day
Arc 4 - Bhisma-Vadha Parva - Chapter 16 - Battles On the Tenth Day
Sañjaya said:
O King, hear now how the princes contended while the grandsire still blazed like a sacrificial fire on the tenth day.
Abhimanyu, lion-hearted and swift, pressed forward for Bhīṣma’s sake and met your son in the midst of a many-bannered host. Duryodhana, stung with wrath, planted shafts upon Subhadrā’s child; but the youth, aflame, sent a killing dart like Yama’s rod towards the Kuru king. Your son, deft as a falcon’s stoop, split that comet-shaft, and Abhimanyu answered with a rain of iron that rang upon cuirass and arm.
Ashvatthāman, brahmin-born but terrible in war, smote Sātyaki full in the breast; the grandson of Sini repaid him measure for measure, feathered Kānka-winged reeds finding every joint and seam. Again the preceptor’s son darkened the sky; again Sātyaki’s answering surge cut the darkness into light.
Meanwhile Paurava and Dhṛṣṭaketu, both vast of frame and proud of bow, hewed each other’s cars to wreck, slew steeds, and sprang to earth with moon-mapped shields and moon-bright blades. They circled, leapt, and closed—two forest-lions contending for one mate—till scimitar found bone and shoulder found edge; both fell together, and were borne away by loving hands—Paurava by Jayatsena, Dhṛṣṭaketu by Sahadeva of the twin sons.
Chitrasena’s iron sleet lashed Suśarmā; Suśarmā, wrath-lit, returned with storms of his own. Their banners shook like two trees in contrary winds, yet neither bowed.
Abhimanyu—ever his father’s fire—broke upon Vṛhadvāla of Kosala for Pārtha’s sake and Bhīṣma’s undoing. The Kosalan scarred him with five, then twenty; the youth cut bow from hand, then stitched the king with thirty. Vṛhadvāla seized another bow and fought on: their duel, O King, shone like Vāli and Vāsava meeting between gods and Asuras.
Bhīma, storm-breathing, fell upon the elephant legions. Thunderbolt in hand—so did he seem—he split the mountain-beasts; black heaps lay groaning, frontal globes burst, as if dark hills had been strewn and broken over earth. Elsewhere Dharma’s son, well warded, matched the Madra lord Śalya; Śalya, loyal to the grandsire’s cause, drove the son of Kuntī hard. Virāṭa traded wounds with Jayadratha of Sindhu till their harness glittered red in the sun.
Droṇa found Dhṛṣṭadyumna and the air thrummed. The preceptor’s razor-flight sheared the Pāñcāla’s bow; the Pāñcāla seized another and hurled a mace like Death’s own bar. Droṇa split it to golden spray, and when a whetted dart came humming, he loomed behind nine steel negations and sent his adversary staggering back—teacher and destined slayer consuming one another for Bhīṣma’s sake.
Then the diademed Arjuna sighted the son of Gaṅgā and rushed like a mad tusker upon a rival. Bhagadatta of Pragjyotiṣa threw his war upon Pārtha, elephant and all; but Pārtha’s silver-bright irons stitched the beast as a net stitches water. “On!” cried Kṛṣṇa; “On!” cried Pārtha to Śikhaṇḍin; and the prince of Pañcāla, fearless beneath his fate, drove straight for the grandsire’s car.
Your sons and kings, roaring, flung themselves against Arjuna to break his passage; but he, like a hot wind in a brittle summer, blew through their ranks and left them shaking. Śikhaṇḍin, anxious for nothing, pierced the venerable one again and yet again.
Then Bhīṣma became a conflagration.
His car was the fire-chamber, his bow the living flame; swords, darts, and maces were the fuel; and his arrows—O King—were sparking brands that leapt upon Kṣatriya forests. His leonine shouts filled the quarters; his palm-slap and bow-twang were thunder; wherever the shafts of Śāntanu’s son arrived they did not kiss—they entered and passed through.
Crowds of riderless cars tore the field like wind-driven chariots of dust. Fourteen thousand princes of Cedi, Kāśī, and Kāruṣa—gold-crested, vow-firm, ready for death—went down beneath that mouth of Time. None who came near returned, save two: Arjuna white-horsed with Keśava at the reins, and Śikhaṇḍin, destiny’s whetstone, unconquerable in that hour.
He burned like a sun without set,
He drank like a sea without let;
Yet fate had fashioned a single door—
Śikhaṇḍin first, and Pārtha’s war.
The bows were clouds, the arrows rain,
The earth a drum for death’s refrain;
Still Dharma’s sons pressed, breath by breath,
To thread the narrow eye of Death.
Sanjaya said:
Sikhandin closed on Bhishma and planted ten broad heads in the grandsire’s chest. Bhishma only glared—hot enough to sear—and held his hand. Remembering Sikhandin’s past as female, he would not strike. Sikhandin mistook that for mercy and pressed harder. Arjuna called out over the din: “Go straight at the grandsire and finish it. None but you can draw his fire—do it, and I will do the rest.”
Then Sikhandin smothered Bhishma in steel, while Bhishma, ignoring the Pañchāla’s storm, turned his answering hail upon me alone—upon Arjuna—and upon our ranks by the thousand. Hemmed on every side, he burned through men and mounts like a forest fire eats dry wood.
In that press your son Duḥśāsana showed startling mettle—holding Partha at bay and shielding the grandsire in the same breath. Alone, he went at all the Pāṇḍavas with Arjuna among them, unhorsed chariot after chariot, and scattered riders and elephants. He flared like a fed blaze—until Vijaya (Arjuna), with Kṛṣṇa at the reins, broke him and drove on for Bhishma. Even beaten back, Duḥśāsana kept his courage, heartened his line with Bhishma’s name, and fought on like a man possessed.
Sikhandin’s shafts, snake-bitter and thunder-hard, rattled on the son of Gaṅgā. Bhishma laughed and took them as a man under a hot sun welcomes rain. Meanwhile he stood like Doom given a face, consuming the Paṇḍava host without rest.
Duryodhana shouted his order: “Close on Phālguna from every side—Bhishma will guard your backs!” Kings and clans—Videhas, Kaliṅgas, Daśārṇas; Niṣādas, Saurasenas, Sālvas; Śakas, Trigartas, Kekayas, and more—swarmed Partha like gnats to a flame. Partha answered with the lore of heaven-born weapons; his Gāṇḍīva flashed, and the sky flowered arrows. Standards fell, chariots upended, horses and elephants went down; none could come within the ape-banner’s bite.
Arjuna then found Duḥśāsana again—speared him through and through till the shafts buried in earth, killed his steeds, felled his charioteer, and stripped Viśeṃsati of his car, wounding him besides. Kripa, Vikarna, and Śalya he pierced and uncarred as well. Reeling, those princes fled. By noon, Savyasāchin burned like a smokeless fire, showering death as the sun showers light, and the field ran red between Kurus and Pāṇḍavas. Men were hewn in halves, heads tumbled, elephants screamed, wheels crushed the fallen; crows, dogs, and jackals found feast everywhere; banners and umbrellas lay strewn like bright wreckage under a blood-tinged wind.
Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from NovelBin. Support the author by reading it there.
Then Bhishma, calling a celestial weapon, drove straight at Kunti’s son where all could see. Sikhandin, mail-bright, sprang to meet him. The moment Bhishma saw that inauspicious front, he drew the blazing weapon back and would not loose it. And while the grandsire held his vow like iron, Arjuna—white steeds foaming, Keśava steady at the yoke—kept cutting your troops to pieces and clouding Bhishma’s eyes with ruin.
Sañjaya said:
When both armies, vast as oceans and furious as monsoon tides, arrayed themselves for battle, every heart was fixed upon the higher realms. Each warrior, clad in mail and resolve, thought not of life but of Brahmaloka, the heaven of heroes. Then, O King, order gave way to chaos. No longer did car meet car or elephant charge elephant—each fought whom he met, like madness loosed upon the earth.
The field became a storm of iron: steeds trampled footmen, elephants crushed horsemen, chariots tore through ranks like ships in a tempest. Friend struck friend, foe slew foe, till no man knew whose blood stained his hand.
As storm to forest, as fire to reed,
So rage devoured each noble creed;
No code, no kin, no mercy’s call,
Only the dark red heart of all.
Then Śalya, and Kripa, and Chitrasena,
and Duḥśāsana fierce as flame,
and Vikarna, proud and peerless,
swept upon the Pāṇḍava host.
Their chariots blazed like falling stars,
their arrows hissed like serpents.
The sons of Pāṇḍu reeled before that storm
as a wind-tossed boat upon a winter sea.
Bhīṣma, with bow as death’s own hand, harrowed them with shafts that cut to the bone. But even so, Partha—Arjuna of white steeds— felled elephants by hundreds, dark clouds of the battlefield rent by lightning shafts. Their trumpets turned to screams as they crashed down, and the plain shone ghastly bright with ornaments of slain kings and fallen heroes.
Amid that endless wounding,
thy sons, seeing the grandsire’s wrath,
pressed nearer, ready for death,
seeking heaven through Bhīṣma’s shadow.
And the sons of Pāṇḍu,
remembering wrong and exile and insult,
answered fury with fury,
eager too for heaven’s gate.
Then the commander of the Pāṇḍava host,
Dhṛṣṭadyumna, son of Drupada,
cried aloud to his men:
“O Somakas and Śṛñjayas! Rush upon Gaṅgā’s son!”
They obeyed like waves obey the moon—
even as Bhīṣma’s arrows rained upon them.
Then the grandsire, wrath in human form, remembered the lore of Rāma Jāmadagnya— the dread art of weapons that crush the world. Armed with that wisdom, day after day he cut down ten thousand warriors.
But on this tenth day, O Bharata, he alone slew ten thousand elephants, and seven mighty kings among the Matsyas and the Pāñcālas. Five thousand footmen, one thousand tuskers, and ten thousand steeds fell to his bow that day. And among them lay Śatānīka, brother to Virāṭa, slain by a broad-headed shaft. Then a thousand more Kṣatriyas fell like grain beneath the scythe.
No warrior who came within the grandsire’s range
returned alive;
his arrows were sunbeams turned to steel,
his bow the midday sky itself.
He blazed between the hosts
like Indra burning the Dānavas.
None dared gaze upon his light,
He was the Sun in battle’s night;
Each shaft a flame, each breath a gale,
And death rode singing in his trail.
Then Keśava, smiling amid the storm, spoke to Arjuna as he held the reins:
“There stands Bhīṣma, the pillar between both worlds.
Strike him down, O Pārtha,
and victory is thine.
No other man can face his fire.
Meet him where he rends our line
and quell that sun with thine own light.”
Hearing Keśava’s words, the ape-bannered Arjuna loosed a deluge of arrows, veiling Bhīṣma, his car, his steeds, his standard— till he seemed lost within a cloud. But Bhīṣma, smiling, split those showers with shafts of his own, each stroke of his bow like thunder through rain.
Then came the princes of Pāñcāla and Matsya,
Dhṛṣṭaketu and Bhīma the Terrible,
Dhṛṣṭadyumna, the twins Nakula and Sahadeva,
Chekitāna, the five Kaikayas,
Sātyaki, Abhimanyu, and the sons of Draupadī,
Ghaṭotkaca the Rakṣasa,
Kuntibhoja, Śikhaṇḍin, Virāṭa, Drupada—
each armed, each roaring for the fall of Bhīṣma.
They came like rivers into one sea,
their arrows a flood upon the son of Śāntanu.
Yet Bhīṣma, laughing, broke their tides apart.
He glanced at Śikhaṇḍin and withheld his hand, for memory bound him stronger than fate. But others he struck down like straw. Seven great car-warriors of Drupada’s line fell beneath his bow, and the cries of the Matsyas and Cedis rose like wailing wind.
Still the heroes pressed,
clouding him with men and beasts and steel—
and Bhīṣma, the blazing one,
stood alone at the heart of it,
a sun amid storm.
At last, Arjuna, crowned and unwearied, placed Śikhaṇḍin before him and closed again with the grandsire.
Two fires met upon one field,
Two wills the heavens refused to yield;
Age’s sun and youth’s new flame—
Each knew the other’s death and name.
So, with Śikhaṇḍin leading and Arjuna striking behind, the end began.
Sañjaya said:
When both armies, vast and furious, had drawn themselves up for slaughter, the warriors set their hearts upon heaven. Each longed not for life but for the regions of Brahmā, where the brave and fallen dwell. Then, O King, when the trumpets sounded and the conches roared, reason fled the field. Rank and order dissolved. Charioteers fought elephants, horsemen struck footmen, elephants trampled horses, and the battle turned into a chaos of wrath. None sought equals in arms—each fought whom he met, like madness made flesh. The earth groaned beneath that storm.
Śalya, Kripa, Chitrasena, Duḥśāsana, and Vikarna—those mighty men—drove into the ranks of the Pāṇḍavas like blazing comets tearing through a summer sky. The army of Yudhiṣṭhira, cut by their shafts, swayed like a boat caught in a sudden gale. Bhīṣma, with arrows cold and sharp as winter, tore through the sons of Pāṇḍu, while Arjuna felled elephants vast as thunderclouds. Screaming, they rolled to earth, pierced by countless shafts, staining the dust with rivers of blood. The ground glittered red with ornaments of fallen kings, their faces still adorned with earrings and crests.
Your sons, beholding Bhīṣma’s fury, pressed close about him, eager to die and win heaven. The sons of Pāṇḍu too, remembering every wound, every insult, rushed forward without fear, resolved to conquer or perish. Then Dhṛṣṭadyumna, commander of their hosts, raised his voice:
“O Somakas and Śṛñjayas! Rush upon Gaṅgā’s son! Let your hearts be one with your arms, your lives with your arrows!”
Hearing their general’s cry, the Pāñcālas surged forward, even as Bhīṣma’s deadly rain fell thick upon them. Then the grandsire, wrath kindled by memory, drew upon the dread science once taught to him by Rāma Jāmadagnya—the lore that burns armies to ashes. Day by day, trusting in that art, Bhīṣma slew ten thousand chariot-warriors.
On this tenth day, alone, he slew ten thousand elephants and seven mighty kings of Matsya and Pāñcāla. Five thousand footmen, one thousand tuskers, and ten thousand steeds fell that day to his bow. Śatānīka, brother to Virāṭa, he struck down with a single broad-headed arrow, and a thousand Kṣatriyas followed him into death.
None who came within Bhīṣma’s reach returned alive. His arrows burned like sunlight, his bow shone like the noon sky. No eye could endure his brightness. Between the two armies he stood, radiant as Indra amid the Daityas, burning the Pāṇḍava host as the Sun burns mist from the earth.
None dared gaze upon his light,
He was the Sun in battle’s night;
Each shaft a flame, each breath a gale,
And Death rode laughing on his trail.
Then Keśava, smiling amidst the carnage, spoke to Arjuna as he guided the white steeds:
“There stands Bhīṣma, the barrier of both worlds. Strike him down, O Pārtha, and victory shall be thine. None but thou can bear his fire. Meet him where he breaks our line, and quench his sun with thine own.”
Thus urged by the Lord of the Yādavas, Arjuna drew Gāṇḍīva, and his arrows poured like a monsoon cloud, veiling Bhīṣma, his car, his steeds, his banner, till the grandsire seemed swallowed by storm. But Bhīṣma, laughing, split that tempest with shafts of his own, each arrow answering an arrow, thunder against thunder.
Then came the princes of the Pāñcālas and Matsyas—Dhṛṣṭaketu, Bhīmasena, Dhṛṣṭadyumna, the twins Nakula and Sahadeva, Chekitāna, the five Kaikeyas, Sātyaki, Abhimanyu, the sons of Draupadī, Ghaṭotkaca, Kuntibhoja, Śikhaṇḍin, Virāṭa, Drupada—all stormed forward, bound by one vow: to bring down Bhīṣma. Their arrows darkened the heavens, yet the grandsire stood unmoved, smiling in the heart of chaos.
He looked upon Śikhaṇḍin and loosed no shaft, remembering her birth as woman. But the rest he slew without pause. Seven mighty car-warriors of Drupada’s line fell by his hand, and the cries of the Matsyas and Cedis rose like wailing wind across the field.
Still the Pandava host pressed closer, covering him in dust and fire. Bhīṣma, radiant and unmoved, burned through them like the midday sun through mist.
Then Arjuna, crowned with gold, placing Śikhaṇḍin before him, drew his bow once more and charged.
Two fires met upon one field,
Two souls no fate could make to yield;
The Sun of age, the storm of youth—
Both bound to war, both bound to truth.
Thus began, O King, the last and fiercest hour of Bhīṣma’s war.