novelraw Arc 1 - Śalya-vadha Parva - Chapter 7 - Kaurava Army on its Last Legs
Arc 1 - Śalya-vadha Parva - Chapter 7 - Kaurava Army on its Last Legs
Sanjaya said:
As that terrible battle rolled on, the army of your son was broken by the Pāṇḍavas; yet, rallied by fierce captains and iron will, the Dhārtarāṣṭras wheeled back and fought again. The field darkened like a storm-lashed sea, neither side giving an inch, warriors striking by guess and by voice, each name a beacon in the dust.
Yudhiṣṭhira, wrath roused and steady-handed, struck Kṛpa with three gold-feathered shafts and slew Kṛtavarmā’s four steeds with four more. Aśvatthāman drew Hṛḍika’s son away; Kṛpa answered with eight keen arrows that bit the king. Then Duryodhana hurled seven hundred chariots against Yudhiṣṭhira: a ring of wheels and bows, a cloud to hide the sun. The Pāṇḍava chiefs—Śikhaṇḍin foremost—surged in, bells chiming on their yokes, and the rescuers turned that ring into wreckage. The kurus closed once more, and the slaughter deepened.
The conchs were storms, the drums were thunder,
The bows were lightning’s braided flare;
The noon was night, the breath was fire,
And death was everywhere.
Awful portents broke the sky—earth shivered with her forests and hills; meteors, bright as brands, fell whistling from the vault; a wild wind drove pebbles like sling-stones; elephants wept hot tears. Kṣatriyas looked upon these omens and chose heaven by the straight path: they closed their ranks and raised their bows anew on kuru’s holy ground.
Then Śakuni, son of the Gandhāra king, called out: “fight them face to face—I shall slay the Pāṇḍavas from behind.” The Mādraka levies cheered and pressed forward. But the invincible Pāṇḍavas, sure of aim, shook out their bows and riddled the madras; your lines wavered and began to drift from battle. Śakuni shouted the fugitives back, and with ten thousand lancers of Gandhāra, he fell upon the Pāṇḍava rear, cutting it cruelly.
Like wind that shreds a summer cloud,
His darts unstitched the ordered line;
The rear-guard cracked, the banners bowed—
The dust and blood were turned to brine.
Seeing his army reel, Yudhiṣṭhira spoke, calm and cutting, to Sahadeva: “there stands Subala’s son, armored and butchering our rear. Take the sons of Draupadī and strike him down. I, with the Pāñcālas, will break their cars. Let elephants, horses, and three thousand foot go with thee—end his mischief.” At once, seven hundred elephant-towers, five thousand horse, three thousand foot, Sahadeva, and the sons of Draupadī stormed toward Śakuni.
Fierce and nimble, Subala’s son met them and bled them from the shadows. Pāṇḍava horse cut into his cars and shot from the shelter of their own elephants, turning the sky to iron sleet. Then the bows fell silent—men closed with mace and lance, heroes only, face to face.
Swords flew like meteors raked by wind,
And lances swarmed like locust wings;
The hoofs beat drums of iron sin,
And dust made night for kings.
Steeds staggered, washing their legs in blood, then dropped in heaps; riders dragged riders down by hair and harness; some fought like wrestlers, grappling to kill; some, pierced and raving, struck friend and foe alike. The ground was choked with tangled dead—elephant-archers, horsemen, foot—so close no rider could advance a spear’s length. At last, both battered remnants—your Gandhāran six thousand and the blood-soaked Pāṇḍava six thousand—drew breath and fell back a space.
The Pāṇḍava horse cried, “not here for cars—nor elephants. Let cars meet cars, elephants elephants!” The sons of Draupadī wheeled toward Dhṛṣṭadyumna; Sahadeva found Yudhiṣṭhira in the rising grit. When the dust settled, Śakuni, wrath rekindled, struck Dhṛṣṭadyumna’s wing again, and the slaughter rekindled with it. Men stared, then hurled themselves in hundreds, in thousands. Heads thumped down like falling palmyra fruit, limbs and blades rained hard as hail; brothers cut brothers for meat like carrion birds at dusk.
The wolves were glad, the jackals sang,
The vultures ringed the crimson plain;
The living reeled through iron rain,
And kings lay down without their names.
Spent with rage and thirst, hides chafed, mouths salted with dust, both sides drew back a pace. Then Subala’s son—lean force at heel—drove again at the Pāṇḍava wall. The sons of Pāṇḍu, with foot and horse and tusked towers, ringed him round. Your captains—on car, on foot, on elephant—rushed to pry him free; unarmed men punched and kicked foes from wheels; car-men and howdah-men fell like devas shaken from their cars as merit ebbed.
Thus it burned on, o king—no man sparing friend or kin, the sky netted with lances and arrows, the earth iron-clad with broken mail. And still they fought to the last warm drop, vomiting blood, headless trunks clutching their own hair, swords lifted in habit though the mind was gone. The din softened only when exhaustion darkened sight; then once more Śakuni edged toward the Pāṇḍava host—only to find the circle close, bright with lifted steel, eager to end all quarrels in his blood.
Encircled like a dying fire,
He spat his sparks and would not yield;
But fate had drawn the boundary wire—
And narrowed to a single field.
Sanjaya said:
When the uproar dipped and the Pāṇḍavas had hewn great swathes through their foes, Subala’s son returned—seven hundred horse still clinging to his banner. He rode the line, urging them: “Fight, you chastisers of foes, fight gladly!” Then, hungry for the center, he asked, “where is the king?” They pointed him toward the moon-bright umbrella and the iron chorus of mail and drums. Shakuni reached Duryodhana encircled by steadfast cars and, as if victory were already salted and stored, cried, “strike down their chariot-wings! I have broken their horse. Yudhiṣṭhira cannot be mastered except by one who wagers his life. When his car-guard falls, we’ll finish the rest.”
At that, your archers lifted their bows; palms slapped cords; arrows hissed like hot rain. Seeing the surge, Dhanañjaya said to Keśava, “press the horses, unfearing—cut the sea. With my keen shafts I’ll measure this war to its end. This is the eighteenth day, Janārdana. Their ocean has become a cow’s hoofprint. Had peace followed Bhīṣma’s fall, all would be well—but folly sat in Suyodhana’s ear. Wise words fell: Bhīṣma’s, Droṇa’s, Kṛpa’s, even Vidura’s—he cast them by. Karṇa fell; still the butchery. Shalya fell; still the butchery. Kings by the dozen—Srutayush, Jalasaṃdha, Bhūriśravā, Jayadratha, Bhagadatta—still the butchery. Bhīma slew an Akṣauhiṇī; still it burned. Vidura foretold it: ‘as long as he breathes, he will not yield you your share; you must win it in battle.’ so be it. Drive, Vṛṣṇi-lion—today I’ll break the weak remnant before his eyes, for Yudhiṣṭhira’s good.”
He spoke of counsel turned to dust,
Of warnings drowned in pride;
Of omens read and set aside,
Of Dharma scorned for lust.
He lifted oath like tempered steel,
He yoked it to his bow;
And destiny, a shadowed wheel,
Began its final slow.
Krishna, reins firm, poured the white steeds into that forest of bows—darts for thorns, maces for roots, cars and elephants the looming trunks, cavalry and foot the coiling vines. Pennons stitched the wind; the Vṛṣṇi’s face was bright with dust and purpose. Savyasāchī loosed—hundreds in a breath—like a black monsoon dragged across a summer plain. The sound of his arrows was a grinding rain; the men beneath them wore that rain as fire.
This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Gold-feathered, oil-bright, name-marked, straight—
They combed the sky till sky was none;
They wrote the compass into haze
And hammered noon to molten sun.
They bit through mail, they stunned the bone,
They felled the tusk and wheel;
The ground became a hive of drones,
The air a threshing mill.
The Kaurava strength went slack beneath that blaze; Partha burned them as dry reeds go to a tossed brand. Like a border-fire that leaps a ditch and eats the woodlands’ brittle fringe, his wrath ran down the ranks. He did not shoot twice: man or horse or massive elephant sank to a single, thunder-loud touch. Alone, like Vāsava among Daityas, he walked that division to its end with shafts of many cuts and purposes—net, wedge, crescent, boar’s ear, horn—and every shape spelled ruin.
Thus Gandiva sang the close,
String a cobra, shaft a flame;
Thus the last tall standard froze,
And fell without a name.
Sañjaya said:
Dhanañjaya, with his bow of celestial power, frustrated the last hopes of those unreturning heroes who still strove in that field, striking blindly at their foes. The shafts of Pārtha fell thick and keen, irresistible in flight, each burning like lightning’s tongue, each sounding like the hiss of wrathful serpents. They fell in torrents, O King, like rain poured from a storm-cloud torn open by the wind.
Then thy army, smitten by Kiritin’s storm, broke and fled in the very sight of thy son. Some abandoned fathers, others fled from sons. Some, having lost their steeds, ran on foot; others, bereft of their charioteers, wandered like men cast adrift at sea. Chariots lay shattered—yokes broken, wheels cleft, poles splintered. Some warriors had spent their arrows; others, unwounded yet trembling, turned back together in fear.
Men called to brothers lost in smoke,
And fathers cried to sons unknown;
The wind was filled with broken oaths,
The ground with shattered bone.
Some, wounded unto swooning, gasped for breath upon their cars, pierced and senseless beneath Arjuna’s flight of fire. Others bore them away to safety, cooled their lips with water, and returned once more to battle’s blaze. Some tightened harness and took the field anew; others soothed their fathers and sons, left them in the camp, and came again to die.
The Kaurava chariots, refitted and realigned, shone once more like Daityas arrayed for heaven’s assault, their rows of bells ringing shrill as fate. They came on with gold-adorned yokes and bright banners, striking at Dhṛṣṭadyumna and the Pāñcāla host.
The prince of the Pāñcālas, fierce as fire fanned by wind, met them in wrath with Śikhaṇḍin at his side and Satanika, Nakula’s son. He pressed upon thy troops, loosing his shafts in torrents, desiring their slaughter. Duryodhana met him head-on, pouring his arrows like hail upon the mountain slope. Many shafts he drove into Dhṛṣṭadyumna’s arms and chest; the prince, pierced deeply like an elephant in rut, yet stood and smote.
Then he, the slayer of foes, struck down Duryodhana’s four steeds, and with a keen, broad-headed shaft he smote the charioteer upon the neck so that the head flew free and fell, bright as a fruit from the bough. Thy son, thus fallen from his car, mounted a horse and withdrew to a near field, his heart burning but his strength spent.
Beholding his broken host, the Kuru king rode swiftly to where Subala’s son stood still urging on the fight. Around them, O Bharata, rose three thousand elephants gigantic as hills, encompassing the five sons of Pāṇḍu like thunderclouds circling the stars.
Then Arjuna, that white-steeded bowman, his aim unerring, advanced. His arrows flashed like meteors striking peaks; each shaft slew its mark, each fell clean and fatal. Those elephants, huge and dark as rain-mountains, fell or fell to their knees, pierced through by the wrath of Savyasācin.
The shafts were flame, the beasts were night,
Their bellow thunder, blood their rain;
The ground was red, the air was bright,
And death walked calm between.
Bhīmasena, seeing the beasts reel, leapt down from his car, his mace raised high. He rushed like Yama himself descending to the plain. So dreadful was his coming that men in thy army voided fear itself—some trembling, some crying aloud, some loosing their very bowstrings. The elephants turned in panic; their tusks snapped; their foreheads burst beneath the blow of his iron club. Huge forms fell crashing, their trunks curled in death like rivers gone dry.
He broke the mountains with his hand,
He split the peaks of bone;
The forest beasts could hardly stand,
The sky itself made moan.
Yudhiṣṭhira, wrathful, and the twin sons of Mādrī, too, smote the elephant-lords with vulture-winged arrows, their tips flaming like tongues of sacrifice. Dhṛṣṭadyumna, seeing the king of the Kurus driven off and the Pāṇḍavas hemmed round by the elephants, turned his car and sped like a comet toward that heaving mass.
Meanwhile Aśvatthāman, Kṛpa, and Kṛtavarmā sought their lost king amid the carnage. “Where is Duryodhana?” They cried. Not finding him among the broken cars, they feared him slain. Some answered that, his charioteer fallen, he had gone to Subala’s son; others, wounded and near death, muttered: “What matters Duryodhana now? Fight on if you have strength left.”
Many, mangled and mourning their kin, spoke in hollow voices: “Slay those who encircle us! See, the Pāṇḍavas come, the elephants fall!” Hearing these broken cries, the mighty Aśvatthāman, piercing through Dhṛṣṭadyumna’s division, went with Kṛpa and Kṛtavarmā toward Śakuni’s banners.
Then the Pāṇḍavas, with Dhṛṣṭadyumna at their head, pressed forward and smote thy wavering ranks. Many faces turned pale; many warriors threw down their arms. Seeing them nearly weaponless and ringed round, I, O King, reckless of life, joined the five captains of our host and rallied to the spot where Kṛpa, son of Śaradvat, still fought.
Afflicted by the arrows of Kiritin, yet still we stood. A fierce battle flared between us and the Pāñcāla lines. At last, vanquished, we fell back, and I beheld Sātyaki bearing down upon us with four hundred chariots like a tide of flame.
His bow was light, his wrath was deep,
His horses shone with foam;
The earth itself forgot to sleep,
The air forgot to roam.
He clove my mail and sought to take me alive. I fell insensible and lay beneath his shadow, until the field turned crimson and the elephant host lay broken. Bhīma’s mace and Arjuna’s shafts made a mountain-field of death; the Pāṇḍavas themselves found their way blocked by the fallen giants. Then Bhīma dragged the corpses aside with his hands and cleared a path.
Meanwhile, Aśvatthāman, Kṛpa, and Kṛtavarmā of the Sātvata line, finding not the king among the chariots, hastened to where Subala’s son yet fought, longing for a sight of Duryodhana amid that ruin of the world.
Sañjaya said:
After the elephant-host had been destroyed by the son of Pāṇḍu, and while thy army was still reeling beneath Bhīmasena’s storm of slaughter, behold, O King, that lion among men came careering through the dust like Kāla himself, the all-destroying end of time, mace raised high and wrath blazing from his eyes.
Then, as Duryodhana could not be seen upon the field, the remnant of thy sons—those that still drew breath among the countless slain—gathered themselves together. United by despair, those uterine brothers of the Kuru line rushed upon Bhīma all at once. They were Durmarṣaṇa and Śrutanta, Jaitra and Bhūrivala, Ravi and Jayatsena, Sūjata and Durviṣaha; with them came Durvimochana and Duṣpradharṣa, and the mighty-armed Śrutarvan—all warriors of renown, all skilled in arms.
Forming a ring around him, they closed in from every side, their arrows showering like driven rain. But Bhīmasena, mounting once more upon his car, loosed his shafts at their hearts and limbs, each arrow hissing like an angry serpent. The sons of Dhṛtarāṣṭra pressed upon him, dragging his chariot by sheer numbers like men striving to halt a raging elephant.
He roared aloud and turned his face,
His bowstring sang, his eyes were flame;
The sons of blind Dhṛtarāṣṭra’s race
Fell one by one without a name.
With a razor-headed shaft, he sheared off Durmarṣaṇa’s head; it rolled upon the dust. Then, with another broad-tipped arrow that pierced through armour as though through cloth, he struck down Śrutanta. Jayatsena came next—Bhīma’s cloth-yard shaft smote him through the chest, and the prince fell lifeless from his car.
Śrutarvan, seething with rage, struck back with a hundred shafts that tore Bhīma’s mail; the son of Pāṇḍu endured them unmoved. Then, burning with fury, he pierced Jaitra, Ravi, and Bhūrivala—three bright Kuru stars extinguished at once, falling like kiṃśuka trees in spring felled by the woodsman’s axe.
Another shaft, broad and heavy, struck Durvimochana full in the breast; he fell as a mountain-tree broken by the gale. Then Duṣpradharṣa and Sūjata came forward in haste—each fell with two arrows to the heart. Durviṣaha charged, and Bhīma’s broadhead took him clean through; he toppled from his chariot like a torch in rain.
Beholding so many of their brothers slain by Bhīma single-handed, Śrutarvan’s wrath became a flame. Drawing his bow, he covered the son of Pāṇḍu with fire-tongued arrows that gleamed like the rods of Yama himself. One struck Bhīma’s arm, another his breast; yet the hero stood unshaken, vast as the ocean stirred by moon and tide.
Then Śrutarvan, in fury, cut Bhīma’s bow in twain and pierced him with twenty shafts. But Bhīmasena laughed aloud, took up another bow, and cried, “Wait—wait, O Kaurava!” The two clashed in a duel fierce and beautiful to behold, even as Indra fought with the Asura Jambha in days of old.
Their arrows streaked like fiery snakes,
Their bows bent low with thunder’s weight;
The heavens dimmed, the daylight breaks—
The gods looked down to watch their fate.
Śrutarvan’s shafts pierced Bhīma deep; blood streamed from his arms and breast, and yet he smiled. Then the son of Pāṇḍu smote down his foe’s driver and four steeds with arrows that carried the will of destiny. Bereft of car and steeds, Śrutarvan leapt to earth, sword and shield in hand, his armour bright with a hundred moons.
Bhīma drew his bow again—swift as thought, the razor-headed shaft flew forth and severed the prince’s head. It fell like a fruit struck from its stem, and the headless trunk crashed upon the earth with a thunderous sound.
The dust rose high, the blood ran deep,
The sky itself seemed overcast;
The wind forgot its breath to keep—
For Śrutarvan had breathed his last.
Seeing that mighty one fallen, thy remaining soldiers, though faint and trembling, rushed once more against Bhīmasena, desperate for honour in death. Surrounded on all sides, Bhīma drew forth arrow after arrow, smiting them down as Indra smites the Dānavas with rain of flame.
He shattered five hundred chariots with their guards; he slew seven hundred elephants and ten thousand foot with his darts, and eight hundred steeds in one fierce hour. His form shone terrible, drenched in gore, the ground about him crimson with Kuru blood.
Thus, O King, the son of Kuntī, having slain thy sons and their warriors, deemed his vow fulfilled, the purpose of his birth accomplished. None among the Kurus dared look upon him then, so dreadful was his might.
He slapped his arms—the sound was dire,
The tuskers shivered where they stood;
His gaze was molten, bright as fire,
His breath the scent of death and blood.
Then thy army, O monarch, thinned to but a remnant, stood shattered, trembling, and forlorn. The men lost hope, their hearts failed them utterly—for the wrath of Bhīma, like a tempest, had passed through and left the world in ruin.