novelraw Arc 3 - Jayadhratha-Vadha Parva - Chapter 15 - Bhīma Vs Karṇa II
Arc 3 - Jayadhratha-Vadha Parva - Chapter 15 - Bhīma Vs Karṇa II
Dhṛtarāṣṭra said:
“O Sūta, O Sañjaya! Truly I see now that this grievous ruin of the Kauravas has sprung from my own blind will.
I thought, ‘What is past is past,’ but Destiny has not forgotten.
Tell me then, since my mind is at last stilled, how the slaughter proceeds—
for I know now that my own counsel has become the seed of death.”
Sañjaya said:
Then, O King, Bhīma and Karṇa, both terrible and mighty, rained their arrows upon each other like two tempest-charged clouds bursting on the sea. Each arrow winged with gold, each whetted on stone, bore Bhīma’s mark as it pierced into Karṇa’s breast— as though seeking the very chamber of his life. Likewise, O monarch, Bhīma himself was shrouded in the Sūta’s shafts, each snake-eyed, burning with venomous flame.
The air grew wild with whistling arrows; the ground heaved beneath the slaughter. Among thy hosts a tremor ran, like the shudder of the ocean struck by wind. Men fell by thousands to the arrows of Bhīma, sharp and pitiless as the wrath of Rudra. The earth was strewn with elephants and steeds and heroes torn asunder, so that the field appeared a forest beaten down by a hurricane.
“Spears fell like thunder, chariots split like trees,
and blood ran crimson, deep as seas;
the ground was glassed with mail and gold—
the harvest sown by hatred old.”
Fleeing before the twin storms of Bhīma and Karṇa,
the soldiers of Sindhu, Sauvīra, and Kuru fled afar crying,
“Surely the gods themselves bewilder us for the sake of the Pāṇḍavas!
For the shafts of Bhīma and of Karṇa alike bring only death!”
So saying, they withdrew to a safe distance, standing like trembling watchers before a fire they dared not quench.
Then upon the field there arose a river dreadful to behold— its current was blood, its foam the entrails of men, its banks were piled with elephants and steeds, its waves thick with banners and broken wheels. Its eddies were churning standards, car-shafts, and golden-plumed arrows; its lotuses were helmets, its reeds were spears, its fishes were slain warriors floating side by side.
“A river ran through Kurukṣetra plain,
not born of rain, but born of pain;
its waters red, its music cries—
the dirge of kings who dared the skies.”
The earth glittered with wreckage:
earrings and armlets of gold, loosened diadems and crowns, fallen umbrellas and yak-tails, torn flags and scattered fans;
the pierced bodies of elephants and horses, the sundered arms of men still clasping swords.
Everywhere were lances, clubs, maces, and axes flashing with blood;
and bright mail, broken bows, and arrows feathered with gold gleamed like stars upon the darkened soil.
The Siddhas and the Cāraṇas, hovering unseen above the field, marveled at the superhuman might of the two heroes. For as a forest-fire, fed by the wind, devours a mountain’s wood, so did Adhiratha’s son and Bhīma together consume the host of kings.
“They raged like twin-born fires of fate,
fierce hands of Time that none may sate;
and men, like leaves in autumn’s breath,
fell down to feed the flame of death.”
Thy army, O King, was like a vast black cloud rent by lightning.
In the heart of that storm stood Bhīma and Karṇa—
two titans of wrath, their arrows the rain, their hearts the thunder—
and all around them, the world itself seemed to burn.
Sañjaya said:
Then Karṇa, O King, smote Bhīma with three keen shafts and loosed a flood of glittering arrows. The mighty-armed son of Pāṇḍu, though struck, stood fast—immovable as a mountain stuck with javelins. In answer, Bhīma sent a barbed, oiled, razor-edged shaft that found Karṇa’s ear and sheared it clean—down fell the great jewel like a blazing star torn from the firmament. Smiling in wrath, Vṛkodara planted a broad head deep in Karṇa’s chest, and after it ten long arrows—serpents fresh from slough—bit into the Sūta’s brow. With those shafts fixed there he seemed garlanded once more, as when blue lotuses ringed his frontlet.
Staggering, eyes shut, Karṇa leaned upon the yoke; then, blood-washed and furious, he surged back, pouring a hundred vulture-winged shafts. Bhīma met the storm with his own, the two tigers of men roaring, palming thunder on their chariot rails, drowning the day in iron rain. Bhīma’s razor sliced Karṇa’s bow; Karṇa snatched up another, stronger and harsher, and the field—Sindhu, Sauvīra, Kuru alike—lay drowned in broken standards, wheels, and fallen beasts.
“Stars fell in daylight—
not from the sky but from helms;
gold rained with blood,
and banners were comets in dust.”
Now Radha’s son drew his gold-decked bow till it was a ring of fire. His hand knew no gap between nocking, drawing, loosing; the welkin filled with long, bright flights, as cranes in endless rows. Sunlight went out beneath that cloud of gleaming death. Bhīma answered with a streaming garland of gold-winged shafts; where they met, sparks leapt and the wind itself held breath. Two contrary currents of storm crashed mid-air; the sky seemed to kindle.
Karna, hungry to kill, sped file on file of polished, smith-burnished blades. Bhīma chopped each into thirds, crying “Wait—wait!” and hurled fresh tempests. The bowstrings sang; palms cracked like thunder; wheels rattled like war-drums. All stopped to watch; “Excellent!” cried ṛṣis and Siddhas; flowers fell from unseen hands.
Still Karṇa’s craft slid through. With straight shafts he clipped Bhīma’s twin quivers, cut the bow-cord, slit the traces, killed the steeds, spitted the charioteer. Down dipped Bhīma’s flag. Carless, he snatched a gold-shod dart and storm-hurled it; ten of Karṇa’s arrows sliced it to meteors. Bhīma sprang to shield and sword; Karṇa shredded the shield to ribbons; Bhīma’s hurled blade cut the Sūta’s bowstring and clanged to earth like an angry snake. Karṇa, smiling, raised a tougher bow and rained a thousand lights; stung, Bhīma leapt high, and Karṇa, heart pricked, ducked behind his car-rim. Bhīma dropped to earth and seized the flagstaff to drag the archer down, as Garuḍa hooks a serpent—the watchers roared their wonder.
Weapon-spent, Vṛkodara stood square with his shattered car behind him. Karṇa rolled forward; they roared to each other like late-summer clouds and closed, gods and Dānavas of old reborn. Pressed hard, Bhīma slipped amid the heaps of Arjuna’s elephant-slain, a maze no chariot dared, and there he heaved a carcass aloft—Hanumat with Gandhamādana’s peak—until Karṇa’s arrows riddled the weight from his hands. Wheels, steeds, broken gear—whatever he found, Bhīma hurled; Karṇa sliced all to splinters in the air.
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Bhīma’s fists knotted, thunder in knuckles; death hovered—then he remembered the vow: Arjuna’s hand must end Karṇa. He stayed his killing stroke. And Karṇa, in turn, remembering Kuntī’s plea, spared the unarmed foe. He merely touched Bhīma with the bow-horn.
At that touch the snake breathed—Bhīma snatched the bow and clubbed Karṇa’s helm. Red-eyed and smiling, Karṇa spat his old venom: “Beardless eunuch! Kitchen-brawler! Wood-dweller fit to fetch roots and scold cooks!” He stung him with the insults of youth. Bhīma laughed aloud:
“Boaster! I have broken thee again and again.
Wrestle me bare-armed, and as I slew the giant Kīcaka,
so shall I slay thee before the kings.”
Karṇa, keen of wit, would not be drawn to Bhīma’s strength. He held his bow and words. Then Keśava urged Pārtha; the ape-banner flamed. Arjuna’s stone-whetted, gold-bright shafts flew like cranes into the Kraunca peaks—into Karṇa’s mail and flesh. The Sūta reeled from Bhīma’s side. A single killer-shaft from Gāṇḍīva streaked like Garuḍa for the serpent’s hood—but Aśvatthāman split it mid-flight. Arjuna’s eyes went red; four and sixty barbs bit the preceptor’s son, who slid away into the elephant-thick of Kaurava ranks. Then the great bow of Indra’s child drowned every other chord; Kānka- and peacock-feathered grief cut men, horses, elephants; the host ground beneath his wheels.
“Two vows held the world:
Bhīma’s curb at the edge of kill,
Karṇa’s hand stayed by a mother’s word;
and over them both, Pārtha’s storm—
the vow that draws the day to dusk.”
Dhṛtarāṣṭra said:
“O Sañjaya, my glory wanes with every passing day. The light of my fame is darkened by the dust of ruin, and countless heroes of my line have fallen. Surely, this is the turning of Time, that ancient power which neither gods nor men can withstand. Dhanañjaya, burning with fury, has pierced into my host—a host guarded by Droṇa’s son and Karṇa, said to be impenetrable even to the celestials themselves. United with Keśava, the eternal Lord of all, and with Bhīmasena, the son of Vāyu, as well as with the lion of the Sātvatas, Sātyaki of the Vṛṣṇis, his might has become boundless, his strength terrible to behold. Since the moment I heard that Arjuna had entered my army, grief consumes me like fire devouring dry grass. I see that all the kings of the earth, including the Sindhu ruler, are doomed by destiny. Having once wronged the diademed son of Pāṇḍu, how shall Jayadratha, if once seen by Arjuna, preserve his life? From signs and inference I know already, O Sañjaya, that the Sindhu king is dead. Yet tell me truly how the battle raged. You are skilled in narration—describe to me how the Vṛṣṇi hero, Sātyaki, fought in the great war, he who for Arjuna’s sake alone entered that vast, surging sea of warriors, disturbing it as an elephant plunges into a lotus lake.”
Sañjaya said:
When Bhīmasena, pierced by Karṇa’s shafts, pressed forward like a forest fire among the troops, the son of Sini followed close behind him on his shining chariot. His steeds were white as moonlight, his banner blazed with the sigil of the Vṛṣṇis, and his roar rose above the tumult like thunder at summer’s end. He advanced, his bow drawn to the ear, scattering the Kurus like a tempest driving waves. Wherever he turned, the enemy’s lines trembled, for he seemed the very sun of destruction risen in their midst. None could halt his progress until the Rākṣasa king Alamvusha, the son of Rishyasringa’s line, came forth in wrath. Clad in golden mail and armed with a mighty bow, that terrible warrior rushed like a lion at the Yadu hero.
The armies on both sides, seeing those two equal in valor and fury, ceased fighting for a moment to behold their encounter. Alamvusha’s ten arrows sped like tongues of flame, but Sātyaki, swift as thought, cut them all in midair. Then three shafts, fierce as serpents and bright as fire, flew from the demon’s hand and struck the Yādava full in the breast, piercing his armor. Blood flowed from the wounds, and the grandson of Sini, his eyes kindled like coals, answered with deadly precision. Four golden shafts, shot with the speed of wind, slew Alamvusha’s steeds; and with one broad-headed arrow, fierce as the fire of dissolution, he struck off the Rākṣasa’s moon-bright head.
“Down fell the head like a fallen star,
its golden rings still burning with light;
the earth drank its flame,
and the dust rose red as dawn.”
Having slain the descendant of many kings, that bull among the Yadus, foremost in battle and irresistible in wrath, sped onward toward Arjuna’s banner. As he went, he broke the Kaurava lines as a hurricane scatters a field of reeds, and his shafts fell like rain upon their host.
Wherever Sātyaki wished to go, his steeds bore him swiftly—white as the milk of the moon, white as snow or the kunda blossom, Sindhu-bred and battle-trained, their trappings glittering with gems. As he advanced, Duhśāsana, commander of a great division, surrounded him with chosen warriors. From all sides arrows poured like monsoon clouds loosing rain upon a mountain. But the lion of the Sātvatas met them with his own storm, scattering their ranks with ceaseless volleys.
Quickly checking their advance, Sātyaki drew his great bow till it formed a circle of fire and slew Duhśāsana’s steeds with four keen shafts. His war-cry rose, deep and terrible, shaking the hearts of men.
“The sky rang with the music of his bowstring;
his chariot blazed like lightning through cloud;
the Kurus trembled as the lion of the Yādavas roared.”
Then, from afar, Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna beheld him cleaving the Kuru ranks, moving through the field like Agni devouring the forest, and their hearts swelled with joy. The conches of the two Krishnas sounded, echoing through heaven and earth. All beings knew that the path to Arjuna had been opened by the valor of Sātyaki, the invincible hero of the Vṛṣṇis.
Sañjaya said:
Then the great bowmen of the Trigarta country, their standards adorned with gold, encompassed on all sides the mighty-armed Sātyaki. That warrior of unfailing energy—who accomplished every task with resolute swiftness, and who, having penetrated into that oceanic host, rushed onward seeking Duhśāsana’s car for the sake of Dhanañjaya’s victory—was now surrounded by a multitude of foes. A large throng of Trigarta chariots hemmed him in, and their archers, maddened with rage, poured showers of arrows upon him from all directions.
But the grandson of Sini, possessed of inconceivable might, shone like fire amid dry reeds. Having entered the Bharata host—limitless as the sea, filled with the thunder of palms and the clang of maces—he moved among those warriors like the Wind scattering the waves. His arms seemed to multiply; his movements flashed in every quarter.
“Now seen in the west, anon in the east;
a moment northward, again in the south.
In each direction, his bowstring sang—
one warrior, yet seeming a hundred.”
So wondrous was the lightness of his motion that men gazed and doubted their own sight. They saw him sweep through the Trigarta host, radiant and terrible, until those princes, unable to bear his prowess, fled toward the shelter of their own countrymen.
Next, the warriors of the Sūrasenas advanced, striking him with volleys of arrows, as a mahout drives an elephant with the goad. The high-souled Sātyaki met their challenge with brief contest, and swiftly broke their ranks. Then he turned upon the Kalingas, who stood like a wall across his path.
Transgressing that division, which none before had dared to cross, the mighty-armed Yuyudhāna pressed through their ranks and at last came within sight of Dhanañjaya, the son of Pṛithā. Beholding the gleam of Arjuna’s chariot in the distance, the grandson of Sini felt his heart ease, as a swimmer, long buffeted by waves, feels comfort upon reaching the shore.
Then Keśava, beholding him approach, smiled and spoke unto Pārtha, saying, “Behold, O son of Pṛithā, the grandson of Sini approacheth in thy wake. O thou unconquerable one, he is thy disciple, thy friend, and thine equal in valor. That bull among men, esteeming all the Kauravas as mere straw, hath overcome them. Behold how, for thy sake, he hath pierced through their endless host.”
“Lo, the Sātvata cometh, bright as Indra,
his banner streaming, his bow unwearied.
He hath crushed Droṇa and Kṛitavarman,
and the sons of Dhṛtarāṣṭra fall before him.”
Keśava continued: “Intent upon Yudhiṣṭhira’s good, having slain many foremost warriors, this brave Sātyaki, skilled in weapons and invincible in combat, cometh to thee, O Pārtha. Having done what no other man could do—fought alone amid countless foes with Droṇa himself at their head—he now hastens to join thee, his teacher and guide. Sent forth by the son of Dharma, he pierced the Kaurava army relying solely upon the strength of his own arms. There is none among the Kurus equal to him in prowess. Having slain innumerable kings, he cometh to thee, free from the enemy’s net, like a lion breaking forth from a herd of kine.
“The earth is strewn with severed heads—
faces fair as lotus flowers,
jewels scattered like stars at dawn.
Having made a river of blood for his path,
he cometh toward thee, O Arjuna.”
Arjuna listened, but his heart was not glad. The son of Pṛithā, his brows knit in concern, said unto Keśava, “The arrival of Sātyaki, O mighty-armed one, is not pleasing to me. I know not how king Yudhiṣṭhira fares. Separated from Sātyaki’s protection, I fear for his life. This warrior should have remained by the king’s side. Why then, O Mādhava, hath he left Yudhiṣṭhira to follow me through the ranks? Surely the king is now exposed to Droṇa’s wrath.”
He looked toward the lowering sun and sighed. “The ruler of the Sindhus still liveth, Bhūriśravā is advancing against Sātyaki, and upon me now lieth a heavier burden. I must protect the Sātvata, guard the king, and slay Jayadratha—all before the sun sets. Alas, Yuyudhāna is weary; his weapons are spent; his steeds and driver are exhausted. Bhūriśravā, on the other hand, is fresh and strong, supported by hosts behind him. Will success crown Sātyaki’s valor in this encounter? Having crossed an ocean of peril, will that bull among the Sini line sink now in shallow water?”
“I see the sun drooping westward;
the shadow lengthens upon the dust.
O Keśava, will fate betray the valiant?
Will Bhūriśravā, armed with youth and might,
strike down the lion that broke a hundred spears?”
Then, in grave tones, Arjuna concluded: “I deem this to be a fault of judgment on the part of king Yudhiṣṭhira, who, casting aside his fear of Droṇa, sent Sātyaki forth from his side. Like a hawk ever circling for its prey, Droṇa seeks the capture of the king. O Keśava, will Yudhiṣṭhira, left thus unguarded, escape his snare?”