novelraw Arc 2 - Dushahan Karna-Vadha Parva - Chapter 2 - Bhīma Defeats Karna
Arc 2 - Dushahan Karna-Vadha Parva - Chapter 2 - Bhīma Defeats Karna
Sañjaya said:
Seeing the Pāṇḍava heroes storming forward, Duryodhana tried to rally his army on every side—but though he shouted himself hoarse, the fugitives would not halt. One wing and its outermost files, with Śakuni and well-armed Kauravas, wheeled on Bhīmasena. Karṇa, beholding the royal host give way, said to the king of Madra, “Drive toward Bhīma’s car.” At his word, Śalya urged the swan-white team straight at Vṛkodara.
Bhīma, sighting Karṇa, flared with wrath and fixed his heart on Karṇa’s end. To Sātyaki and Dhṛṣṭadyumna he said, “Guard king Yudhiṣṭhira. He slipped a great peril before my very eyes. For Duryodhana’s joy, Rādhā’s son tore his armor and robes. I will end that grief today. Either I slay Karṇa, or he slays me—this I vow. I give the king into your keeping as a sacred pledge—protect him with a cheerful heart.”
With a lion’s roar that rolled to the quarters, the mighty-armed Bhīma drove on Adhiratha’s son. Śalya said to Karṇa, “Behold the son of Pāṇḍu, blazing with a wrath I have never seen—even when Abhimanyu fell, even when Ghaṭotkaca died. Like the fire that ends the age, he looks fit to resist the three worlds.”
As the Madra spoke, Vṛkodara closed. Karṇa laughed and told Śalya, “What you say of Bhīma is true. He is brave, raging, careless of his body, unmatched in limb. In Virāṭa’s city he slew Kīcaka with bare hands for Draupadī’s sake. Look at him now—mail-clad, wrath-mad, ready to meet Death with uplifted mace. Yet my life-long vow is this: Arjuna or I must fall. If I slay Bhīma or make him carless, Pārtha will come. That will serve me. Do what the hour demands.” Śalya replied, “Check Bhīmasena first; then thou shalt gain Phālguṇa. Thy heart’s desire will be accomplished.”
So Karṇa said again, “Either I slay Arjuna or he me. Set thy heart on battle—drive to Vṛkodara!”
The meeting of the two shook the field—trumpets blared, drums rolled—when Bhīma and Karṇa joined. Bhīmasena’s storm of polished arrows scattered the ranks; Karṇa, wrathful Vṛṣa, struck Bhīma full in the chest and followed with a shower. Bhīma answered shaft for shaft, then with nine keen arrows bit Karṇa again. Karṇa snapped Bhīma’s bow at the grip and with a mail-piercing bolt smote him once more. Bhīma seized another bow and, knowing every vital point, riddled the Sūta’s son. Karṇa in turn planted five-and-twenty, like firebrands on a maddened tusker.
Limbs hacked, eyes red with vengeance, the son of the Wind fixed a massive, mountain-piercing shaft, drew to the ear, and loosed. With a thunder-cry it drove clean through thunder-bolted Karṇa—like the bolt through a crag. Struck by Bhīma, the commander of thy host sank senseless on his car’s terrace. Śalya, seeing him fallen, bore that ornament of battle away from the press.
After Karṇa’s defeat, Bhīmasena surged on and routed the vast Dhārtarāṣṭra host—like Indra breaking the Dānavas.
drums were clouds,
bows the rain,
one shaft split the storm—
and silence fell on Karṇa’s car.
Sañjaya said:
Bhīma felling Karṇa on his own car was a deed hard to match, O King. Seeing Karṇa borne away senseless, Duryodhana cried to his brothers: “Shield the son of Rādhā!” They stormed at Vṛkodara like moths to a flame—Śrutarvan, Durddhara, Kratha, Vivitsu, Vikata, Soma, Niśaṅgin, Kāvashin, Pāśin, Nanda, Upanandaka, Duṣpradharṣa, Suvāhu, Vātavega, Suvarcas, Dhanurgraha, Durmada, Jālasaṃdha, Śāla, and Śaha—ringing him round and darkening the sky with shafts.
Bhīma burst their circle: fifty leading charioteers and five hundred more he struck down; he shore off moon-faced Vivitsu’s head; then Vikata and Śaha fell like twin trees in a gale; Kratha next; Nanda and Upananda followed. The princes broke and fled, thinking Death himself had taken Bhīma’s form.
Śalya drove the swan-white team, and Karṇa, grim once more, closed with Bhīma. Their second clash was a tempest: Karṇa’s nine iron-headed arrows bit deep; Bhīma answered with seven; Karṇa smothered him in a storm, cut his bow, and Bhīma hurled a gold-bound parigha like a thunder-mace—Karṇa sliced it to splinters in mid-air. Again the bows sang; Karṇa’s three arrows pierced; Bhīma’s single mountain-borer drove through Karṇa’s mail and body and into the earth—Rādhā’s son reeled like a shaken hill, then raged in reply: cut Bhīma’s standard, slew his charioteer, sheared his bow and shattered his car.
Bhīma leapt down with mace in hand and became a cyclone. Seven hundred tusked elephants he felled—temples, eyes, frontal globes—pressing fifty-two of Śakuni’s best into the dust; a hundred cars and hundreds of footmen sank beneath his blows. Shrunken by Sun and Bhīma alike, thy host fled where he strode. Five hundred mailed charioteers rushed him—he broke them, cars and banners and men; then three thousand of Śakuni’s horse—he scattered them with the mace and mounted a fresh car, burning for Karṇa again.
Meanwhile Karṇa had heavily smitten Dharma’s son and, as Yudhiṣṭhira wheeled away with his driver down, pursued him with straight Kanka-feathered shafts. Bhīma, wrath-swollen, roofed the sky with arrows and drew Karṇa off; the Sūta’s son turned and wrapped Bhīma in barbed rain. Sātyaki flashed to Bhīma’s flank and harried Karṇa; still Karṇa drove in, and the two great bowmen made noon as dark as storm—their arrow-lightnings crossing like cranes against a blackened Sun.
Seeing Subala’s son, Kṛtavarman, Aśvatthāman, Karṇa, and Kṛpa reengaged, the Kauravas rallied and surged back. Then swelled a roar like many monsoon seas meeting: line crashed on line, name answered name, each man flinging the sharpest taunt his foe’s birth or deeds could bear. I thought, O King, their life-terms had run out, so bitter were their cries, so dreadful the mangling. Kaurava and Pāṇḍava alike, mighty car-warriors, hewed at one another unceasingly, till the field was a single seething mass of steel and will.
Sañjaya said:
Then, O King, the Kṣatriyas—long nursing hate, thirsting for one another’s blood—fell to the slaughter. Car met car, horse crashed on horse, elephants locked like storming hills, footmen grappled in tangled heaps. Clubs and spiked maces, kunapas and spears, short arrows and flame-tipped darts rained and rang across the field. Flights of arrows sped like locusts in a burning sky.
Elephant struck elephant, horseman met horseman, chariot against chariot; men on foot flung themselves at steeds and tuskers. The world became a single uproar of iron and cries, the very shape of Rudra’s killing-ground.
The Earth was red as new rain on a plain of vermilion blooms. She seemed a maiden draped in white robes, now dyed with crimson. Mangled flesh and flashing mail glimmered like gold on a rose-hued sea. Heads with jewelled ears, armlets, and diadems rolled together; torn cuirasses, banners, and the broken bodies of heroes lay strewn like shattered offerings.
The tuskers crashed like thunder’s hills,
Their breasts ran red as chalky streams;
Blood lit their mail in molten gleams—
A storm of steel, a rain of wills.
Elephants tore each other’s hides with curving tusks, beautiful even in wrath. Some seized the spears flung at them and snapped them; others, stripped of armor by showers of arrows, loomed bare and dark like winter mountains bereft of clouds. Many great beasts pierced with gold-winged shafts shone like peaks afire at sunset. Some toppled, vast as winged mountains sheared of flight; others sank on their knees, bellowing, their brows and tusks drenched scarlet.
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Steeds in golden trappings staggered, screamed, and fell; others, wounded, ran madly through the crush. Men fell by thousands—crying their fathers’ names, calling to fleeing kin, shouting their clans aloud as death closed in. Severed arms, gemmed and gilt, writhed upon the dust like serpents five-headed; some leapt and coiled as though still alive. Blood-smeared and sandal-scented, they gleamed like banners of gold.
Dust veiled the sky, weapons fell like hail; friend struck friend, foe slew foe. The light dimmed—none could tell direction or kin. Out of that dimness rose rivers of blood:
rocks made of heads, hair the moss upon their banks, bones the fish, bows and spears the rafts, flesh their mire, and blood their tide. They ran swift to Yama’s realm, dreadful to the timid, glad to the brave.
From men and steeds the red flood ran,
To Yama’s gate it bore its span;
Bones were its fish, and swords its oars,
Its waves were crimson, thick with wars.
Crows, vultures, cranes, and jackals reveled; fat dripped, marrow steamed. The field rang with their cries and the shrieks of dying men. Headless trunks lurched upright, and ghastly spirits danced among them. Yet amid that hell, the true warriors of the earth stood firm—casting off fear, keeping their vow of arms, shouting their names, proclaiming their fathers’ lines, striking one another with axes, spears, and shining darts.
So raged that fierce and boundless battle; the Kaurava army, drained of might, tossed like a wrecked ship upon the ocean of death.
Sañjaya said:
Amid that vast and raging battle, where Kṣatriyas by thousands sank into the dust, the great bow of Arjuna sang—its Gāṇḍīva-note rising clear above the din. From the quarter where Pārtha fought, O King, a flame of destruction spread: the Samsaptakas, the Kośalas, and the Nārāyaṇas pressed upon him like seas upon a rock.
Filled with fury and the lust of victory, the Samsaptakas poured showers of arrows on the head of the son of Pāṇḍu. But Arjuna, calm and terrible, checked their storms and plunged amidst them like a whirlwind among reeds. His shafts, winged with kanka feathers, whistled in thousands as he cleft their ranks and came upon Suśarman of the Trigartas. That chief poured his arrows thick as rain, while the Samsaptakas also veiled the sky.
Suśarman pierced Pārtha with ten keen shafts, and struck Kṛṣṇa with three upon the right arm. With a broad-headed arrow he smote Arjuna’s standard—and the great ape upon it, fashioned by divine craft, roared aloud.
The Ape of Indra’s car-flag cried,
His thunder-voice shook heaven wide;
The warriors quailed, the arrows stayed,
As forests freeze when lions raid.
Thy army, O King, stood stricken with fear, motionless as painted trees in a garden. Then, recovering heart, they again drenched Arjuna’s car with arrowy rain, shouting loud, though death was in their cries. They assailed his steeds, his wheels, his shaft, the very limbs of his chariot. Some caught hold of Keśava’s mighty arms; others seized Pārtha himself, shouting with savage joy.
But Kṛṣṇa, laughing, shook his arms—and the warriors fell like riders flung from an angry elephant. Arjuna, seeing his chariot beset and Keśava attacked, blazed with wrath and smote down car-warriors and footmen in heaps. He covered the field near him with close flights of arrows, each shot a death.
Turning to Kṛṣṇa, he said:
“Behold, O Mādhava! these endless Samsaptakas—
Though slain by thousands, still they rise!
No man on earth but I could bear
Such a storm upon his car.”
So speaking, he blew his conch; and Kṛṣṇa answered with the sound of Pāñcajanya, filling the sky with trembling light. The Samsaptakas’ hearts failed; fear seized them as darkness seizes day.
Then Arjuna invoked the serpent weapon—the Nāga-Astra—and lo! their legs were bound as by unseen coils. Rooted to the earth, they stood still as statues, helpless in mid-battle. Pārtha smote them down with ease, like Indra once destroying the Daityas of Tārakā’s host.
Suśarman, seeing his army frozen, loosed the Sauparṇa-Astra, and countless birds descended from the sky, devouring the serpents. Freed of their bonds, the warriors flamed forth again, bright as the Sun released from cloud. They rushed once more, shouting, their arrows flying thick as sparks, but Arjuna cut through every storm with his own shafts, mowing them as wind cuts waves.
Suśarman’s arrow struck Arjuna in the breast; three more followed. The son of Pāṇḍu swayed, pain burning through his frame, and sank upon the car terrace.
Then rose a shout: “Pārtha is slain!”
Conches blared, drums thundered, the Kaurava side roared its joy.
But in an instant, the mighty one arose, eyes like fire, and invoked the Aindra-Astra. From that weapon burst ten thousand arrows—fiery, blazing, irresistible. They swept over the field, slaying kings and elephants, steeds and warriors without number. Terror seized the Samsaptakas and the Gopālas; none dared face Arjuna’s wrath.
There, before all, he wrought destruction. Ten thousand fell, then fourteen thousand more, and three thousand elephants beside. The Samsaptakas, undaunted, encircled him again, choosing death or glory.
Around the diademed one they closed—
Death’s whirlpool on the plain arose;
The bow sang loud, the chariots reeled,
As Time devoured the crimson field.
Thus, O Bharata, raged that dreadful war between thy warriors and the invincible son of Pāṇḍu—terrible, unending, and filled with the sound of Gāṇḍīva’s thunder.
Sañjaya said:
Then, O King, Kṛtavarman, Kṛpa, Aśvatthāman, the son of the Sūta (Karna), Ulūka, Śakuni the son of Subala, and the king Duryodhana himself with his brothers, beheld their vast host broken and scattered by the might of Pāṇḍu’s sons—disordered as a ship tossed on a stormy sea. Gathering heart, they rushed like winds to rescue their sinking army.
For a brief but dreadful span, the battle flared again—its noise delighting the brave, its terror chilling the weak.
Arrows fell like locust swarms,
Bows bent, bright with thunder’s charms;
Spears and swords flashed, blood was flame—
And Dharma’s sons advanced to fame.
Kṛpa, the son of Śaradvat, loosed thick flights of arrows that darkened the sky and drenched the Śṛñjayas. Then Śikhaṇḍin, blazing with wrath, drove at that bull among Brāhmaṇas and rained shafts from every side. The sage-warrior checked them all and pierced Śikhaṇḍin with ten keen arrows.
The Pāñcāla prince, enraged, struck Kṛpa back with seven barbed shafts. Wounded, the venerable preceptor grew stern—he smote Śikhaṇḍin’s steeds, his charioteer, and his car to the ground. The prince, leaping down with sword and shield, charged the Brāhmaṇa like fire seeking fuel. Kṛpa, swift as thought, met him with a hail of arrows that pinned him fast.
The steel-born rain about him flew,
His steps were stayed, his breath was few;
Like cliffs against the ocean’s blow—
The saintly archer laid him low.
Seeing Śikhaṇḍin thus overborne, Dṛṣṭadyumna spurred his horses, wrath aflame, to aid him. But Kṛtavarman, son of Hṛdika, came speeding to block his path. Aśvatthāman, fierce as Death, barred Yudhiṣṭhira’s way; Duryodhana, roaring like a lion, checked the twin sons of Mādrī; and Karna, that relentless hero, engaged Bhīma and the Kāśis, the Śṛñjayas, and the Kaikeyas all at once.
Meanwhile, Śaradvat’s son, untiring, showered arrows on Śikhaṇḍin. The Pāñcāla whirled his sword like lightning, cleaving those golden-feathered shafts. Kṛpa severed his moon-studded shield, and the troops cried aloud at the sight. Stripped of his defence, Śikhaṇḍin still pressed on, sword in hand, like a sick man running to Death’s embrace.
Then young Suketu, son of Citraketu, beheld his comrade’s peril and charged at the Brāhmaṇa. His arrows, countless and keen, poured like a storm on Kṛpa’s car. Śikhaṇḍin, thus freed, drew back. Suketu, pressing forward, pierced Kṛpa with nine shafts, then with seventy, and again with three. He shore the elder’s bow and wounded his driver.
Kṛpa, his eyes blazing, seized another mighty bow and struck Suketu with thirty shafts in vital limbs. The prince, trembling like a wind-shaken tree, wavered on his car; and with a single razor-headed arrow, the son of Gautama struck off his head.
Down fell the head with earrings bright,
As meat from hawk’s relentless flight;
The trunk collapsed, the Earth was red—
And silence swelled where valour bled.
Seeing Suketu fall, his warriors fled in panic from Kṛpa’s wrath.
Now Kṛtavarman, circling Dṛṣṭadyumna, cried aloud—“Wait, Pāñcāla prince!”—and their combat flared like that of hawks for the same prey. Dṛṣṭadyumna pierced the Bhoja chief with nine arrows in the chest; Kṛtavarman answered with a cloud of shafts that hid the Pāñcāla’s car as rain hides the sun.
Arrow on arrow, flame on flame,
The air was thick, the earth became
A crimson sea where heroes burned,
And each to death unflinching turned.
Breaking through that storm, Dṛṣṭadyumna shone with his wounds like the Sun through rain. Rage fired his arm—he poured another fierce shower upon his foe. Kṛtavarman met it with ten thousand arrows, cleaving the storm in mid-air. The commander of the Pāṇḍava host closed in and, with a razor-edged shaft, struck Kṛtavarman’s charioteer in the heart. The man fell lifeless from the car.
Then, triumphant, Dṛṣṭadyumna turned his bow upon the Kaurava ranks and scattered them like dust in wind. Thy warriors, enraged, rushed once more upon him, roaring their lion-cries—
and the field, red and roaring, blazed again with war.