Reading section 87

34. The weeping, crying and tottering wives of the fallen soldiers, fell upon their dead bodies weltering in blood, and embracing them fast by their necks, made an end of themselves with the same weapons.

35. Bodies of soldiers were sent with their guides on the way, to fetch the dead bodies from the field; and the hands of their lively companions, were busily employed in dragging the dead.

36. The field had become a wide river running with waves of blood, and breaking into a hundred whirling streams, carrying the severed heads, as lotuses swimming in them, and the torn braids of hair floating as bushes on them.

37. Men were busy to extract the weapons from the bodies of the wounded, who lamented loudly on account of their dying in a foreign land, and losing their arms and armours and horses and elephants in the field.

38. The dying souls remembered their sons and parents, their dear ones and their adored deities, and called out by their names; and began to sigh and sob with heart-rending heigh-hos and alacks.

39. The brave that died cursed their fates, and those falling in their fighting with elephants, blamed the unkind gods they had adored in vain.

40. The cowards fearing to be killed betook themselves to base flight; but the dauntless brave stepped forward amidst the whirlpools of blood.

41. Some suffering under the agony of arrows piercing their mortal parts, thought upon the sins of their past lives, that had brought this pain upon them; while the blood sucking Vetálas, advanced with their horrid mouths for drinking the blood of the headless trunks (Kabandhas).

42. The floating flags and umbrellas and flappers, seemed as white lotuses in the lake of blood below, while the evening stretched her train of stars like red lotuses in the etherial sea above.

43. The battle field presented the appearance of an eighth sea of blood; the rathas or warcars forming its rocks, and their wheels its whirlpools; the flags being its foam and froth, and the white flappers as its bubbles. (There are seven seas only on record).

44. The field of blood with the scattered cars, appeared as a track of land plunged in mud and mire, and covered over with woods broken down and blown away by a hurricane.

45. It was as desolate as a country burnt down by a conflagration, and as the dry bed of the sea sucked up by the sage Agastya (the sun). It was as a district devastated by a sweeping flood.

46. It was filled with heaps of weapons, as high as the bodies of big elephants lying dead about the ground.

47. The lances which were carried down by the streams of blood, were as big as the palm trees growing on the summits of mountains. (Compare the description in Ossian’s poems).

48. The weapons sticking in the bodies of the elephants, seemed as the shining flowers growing on verdant trees: and the entrails torn and borne up by vultures, spread a fretted network in the sky.

49. The lances fixed beside the streams of blood, were as a woody forest on the bank of a river; and the flags floating on the surface, appeared as a bush of lotuses in the liquid-blood.

50. Dead bodies of men were drawn up by their friends, from the bloody pool in which they were drowned, and the embedded bodies of big elephants were marked by men by the jutting weapons sticking in them.

51. The trunks of trees which had their branches lopped off by the weapons, appeared as the headless bodies of slain soldiers, and the floating carcasses of elephants seemed as so many boats swimming in the sea of blood.

52. The white garments that were swept down by the current, seemed as the froth of the pool of blood, and were picked up by the servants sent to search them out.

53. The demoniac bodies of headless soldiers, were rising and falling in the field, and hurling large wheels and disks upon the flying army on all sides.

54. The dying warriors were frothing forth floods of blood from their throats, and stones stained with blood were inviting the greedy vultures to devour them.

55. Then there were groups of Sutála, Vetála and Uttála demons dancing their war dance about the field, and whirling the rafts of the broken cars upon the flying soldiers on all sides.

56. The stir and last gasp of those that were yet alive, were fearful to behold, and the faces of the dying and the dead that were covered in dust and blood, were pitiful to the beholder.

57. The devouring dogs and ravenous ravens beheld the last gasp of the dying with pity; while the feeders on carrions were howling and fighting on their common carcass, till many of them became dead bodies by their mutual fighting.

58. Now I have described the sea of blood, which flowed fast with the gore of unnumbered hosts of horses, elephants and camels, and of warriors and their leaders, and multitudes of cars, and war chariots; but it became a pleasure garden to the god of death, delighting in his bed of bloodshed, and grove of the weapons beset all around.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

DESCRIPTION OF THE BATTLE-FIELD INFESTED BY NOCTURNAL FIENDS.

Now the blood-red sun set down in the west, like a hero red with blood; and hid his lustre, which was dimmed by the brightness of the weapons of war in the western main.

2. The sky which had reflected the blood-red flush of the field of blood, was now dimmed by the setting of the glorious sun, and darkened by the veil of evening.

3. Thick darkness overspread the face of heaven and earth like the waters of the great deluge, and there appeared a body of ghosts (Vetálas), dancing in a ring and clapping their hands.

4. The face of the day like that of an elephant, being besmeared with the blackness of night fall, was again painted by the light of evening with the pearly spots of stars on the cheeks.

5. The busy buzz of Creation being silent in the dead darkness of night, like the humming of bees over the surface of the waters, the hearts of men were closed in sleep as in death, like the petals of the lotus at night.

6. The birds lay with their folded wings and fallen crests in their nests, as the dead bodies were lying in the field, covered with their wounds and weapons.

7. Then the fair moonbeams shone above, and the white lotuses were blown below; the hearts of men were gladdened, and the victors felt joyous in themselves.

8. The ruddy evening assumed the shape of the blood-red sea of battle, and the fluttering bees now hid themselves like the faces of the fallen soldiers.

9. There was an etherial lake above spangled with stars like the white lotuses on high; and here was the earthly lake below, beset by lotuses resembling the stars of heaven.

10. The bodies that were thought to be lost in darkness, were now recovered in light, as the gems hid under the water, are found scattered about in moonlight.

11. The battle field was filled by the Vetála demons, howling with their hideous cry; while bodies of vultures, crows and owls, were tearing the carcasses and sporting with the skeletons.

12. Then blazed the funeral piles as brightly as the starry frame on high, and the fire consumed the dead bodies together with their bones and raiments.

13. The fire burnt the bodies with their bones to ashes, after which it extinguished itself as if sated with plenty. The female fiends now began to sport in the water.

14. There arose a mingled cry of dogs and crows, of Yakshas and Vetálas, with the clapping of their hands; and bodies of ghosts were moving about as woods and forests.

15. The Dákinis (Dáyinis) were eager to steal away the flesh and fat from the piles, and the Pisáchas delighted in sucking the blood and the flesh and bones of the dead.

16. The demons were now looking and now lurking about the funeral piles, and the Rákshasas that rushed in, bore away the carcasses on their shoulders.

17. There came also bodies of ferocious Kumbhándas, and big Dámaras, uttering their barbarous cries of _chumchum_, and hovering over the fumes of fat and flesh in the shapes of clouds.

18. Bodies of Vetálas stood in the streams of blood like earthly beings, and snatched the skeletons with hideous cries.

19. The Vetála younglings slept in the bellies and chests of the elephants, and the Rákshasas were drinking their fill in the bloody field.

20. The giddy Vetálas fought with one another with the lighted faggots of the piles, and the winds were wafting the stench of the putrid carcasses on all sides.

21. The female fiends (Rúpikás), filled the baskets of their bellies with carrion, with a rat-a-tat (ratarata) noise; and the Yaksha cannibals were snatching the half-burnt carcasses from the funeral piles, as their roasted meat and dainty food (S. kali A. Kul).

22. Aerial imps (khagas) attacked the dead bodies of the big Bangas and black Kalingas, and flouted about with their open mouths, emitting the blaze of falling meteors.

23. The Vetála goblins fell down in the dark and discoloured blood-pits, lying hid in the midst of the heaps of dead bodies; while the Pisácha ogres and the leaders of Yogini sprites, laughed at them for their false step (vetála).

24. The pulling of the entrails (antras-ánts), vibrated as by striking the strings of wired instruments (tantras—or tánts); and the ghosts of men that had become fiends from their fiendish desires, fell a-fighting with one another.

25. Valiant soldiers were affrighted at the sight of the spectres (Rúpíkás); and the obsequies were disturbed by the Vetála and Rákshasa goblins.

26. The hobgoblins of the night (nisácharas), got frightened at the fall of the carcasses from the shoulders of the elves (Rúpíkás), who were carrying them aloft in the air; where they were waylaid by a throng of ghostly demons (bhúta-sankata).

27. Many dying bodies, that were lifted aloft with labour by the bogies (Dánas), were let to fall down dead on the ground, being found unfit for their food.

28. Pieces of blood-red flesh, fallen from the fiery jaws of jackals, resembled clusters of _asoka_ flowers, strewn all around the funeral ground.

29. Vetála urchins were busy in putting on the scattered heads over the headless bodies of kabandhas (acephali); and bodies of Yaksha, Raksha and Pisácha ogres, were flashing as firebrands in the sky.

30. At last a thick cloud of darkness, covered the face or the sky, and the view of the hills and valleys, gardens and groves, was hid under an impenetrable gloom. The infernal spirits got loose from their dismal abodes, and ranged and ravaged at large over the field, as a hurricane under the vault of heaven.

CHAPTER XL.

REFLECTIONS ON HUMAN LIFE AND MIND.

Vasishtha related:—The nocturnal fiends were thus infesting the gloomy field, and the myrmidons of death (Yama), roaming about it as marauders in the day time.