Reading section 94

17. Necklaces like snakes overhung their breasts, and the armours like sloughs of serpents covered their bodies. The flags were flying like crests of creepers on high, and the legs of the warriors stood as pillars in the field.

18. Their long arms were as branches of trees, and the arrows formed a bush of reeds; the flash of weapons spread as a verdant meadow all around, while their blades blazed with the lustre of the long-leaved _ketaka_ flowers.

19. The long lines of weapons formed as rows of bamboos and bushes of brambles, and their mutual clashing emitted sparks of fire like clusters of the red _asoka_ flowers.

20. The bands of Siddhas were flying away with their leaders from the air, to avert the weapons which were blazing there with the radiance of the rising sun, and forming as it were, a city of gold on high.

21. The sky re-echoed to the clashing of darts and discuses, of swords and spears and of mallets and clubs in the field; and the ground was overflown by streams of blood, bearing away the dead bodies of the slain.

22. The land was strewn with crowbars, lances and spears, and with tridents and stones on all sides; and headless bodies were falling hideously, pierced by poles and pikes and other instruments of death.

23. The ghosts and goblins of death were making horrible noise above, and the shining cars of Sindhu and Vidúratha, moved with a loud rumbling below.

24. They appeared as the two luminaries of the sun and moon in heaven, and equipped with their various weapons of disks and rods, of crowbars and spears, and other missiles besides.

25. They were both surrounded by thousands of soldiers, and turned about as thy liked, with loud shouts of their retinues.

26. Crushed under heavy disks, many fell dead and wounded with loud cries; and big elephants were floating lightly on the currents of blood.

27. The hairs on the heads of dead bodies, floated like weeds in the stream of blood, and the floating discuses glided like the disks of the moon, reflected in the purple streamlet.

28. The jingling (jhanat) of gemming ornaments, and the tinkling (ranat) bells of war carriages, with the flapping (patat) of flags by the wind, filled the field with a confused noise.

29. Numbers of valiant as well as dastardly soldiers followed their respective princes, some bleeding under the spears of Kuntas and others pierced by the arrows of bowyers.

30. Then the two princes turned round their chariots in circling rings over the ground, and amidst phalanxes armed with all sorts of destructive weapons.

31. Each confronted the other with his arms, and having met one another face to face, commenced showering forth his arrows with the pattering sound of hailstones.

32. They both threatened one another with the roaring of loud surges and clouds, and the two lions among men, darted their arrows upon one another in their rage.

33. They flung their missiles in the air in the form of stones and malls, and some faced like swords, and others headed as mallets.

34. Some were as sharp edged disks, and some as curved as battle axes; some were as pointed as pikes and spears, and others as bars and rods in their forms, and some were of the shape of tridents, and others as bulky as blocks of stones.

35. These missives were falling as fully and as fast as blocks of stones, which are hurled down from high and huge rocks, by gusts of blustering hurricanes. And the meeting of the two armigerent powers, was as the confluence of the Indus and the sea, with tremendous roaring, and mutual collision and clashing.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

DESCRIPTION OF DAIVÁSTRAS OR SUPERNATURAL WEAPONS.[23]

Vasishtha said:—Rájá Vidúratha, finding the high shouldered Sindhu-rája before him, was enraged like the raging sun, in his mid-day fury.

2. The twanging of his bow resounded in the air on all sides, and growled as loudly as the howling of winds in the caverns of mountains.

3. He drew his arrows from the dark quiver, and darted them like the rays of the sun rising from the womb of night.

4. Each arrow flung from the bowstring, flew as thousands in the air, and fell as millions on the ground. (The arrow or _bána_ is a name given to bombs which burst out into unnumbered shells).

5. The king Sindhu was equally expert in his bowmanship, as both of these bowyers owed their skill in archery to the favour of Vishnu.

6. Some of these darts were called bolts, which blocked the aerial passages as with bolts at their doors, and fell down on the ground with the loud roar of thunderbolts.

7. Others begirt with gold, flew hissing as if blown by the winds in the air, and after shining as stars in the sky, fell as blazing meteors on the ground.

8. Showers of shafts poured forth incessantly from the hands of Vidúratha, like the ceaseless torrents of rivers or billows of the sea, and the endless radiation of solar rays.

9. Shells and bullets were flying about as sparks of fire struck out of the balls of red-hot iron, and falling as flowers of forests, blown away by gusts of wind.

10. They fell as showers of rainwater, and as the rush of water-falls; and as plentifully as the sparks of fire which flew from the burning city of Vidúratha.

11. The jarring sound (chatchat) of their bowstrings, hushed the clamour of the two armies, as a calm quiets the roaring of the raging sea.

12. The course of the arrows, was as the stream of Ganges (the milky path) in heaven, running towards the king Sindhu, as the river runs to meet the sea (Sindhu).

13. The shower of arrows flying from the golden bow of the king, was as the flood of rain falling under the variegated rainbow in the sky.

14. Then Lílá the native of that city, saw from the window the darts of her husband, rushing like the currents of Ganges, against the forces of Sindhu resembling a sea.

15. She understood the flight of those darts to promise victory to her lord, and then spoke gladly to Sarasvatí, with her lotus like face (Lit.—by opening her lotus like mouth).

16. Be victorious O goddess! and behold victory waiting on the side of my lord, whose darts are piercing the rocks, and breaking them to pieces.

17. As she was uttering these words full of affection (to her lord), the goddesses eyed her askance, and smiled at her womanish tenderness of heart.

18. The flaming (Agastian) fire of Sindhu swallowed the raging sea of Vidúratha’s arrows, as the submarine fire consumes the water, and as Jahnu drank the stream of Ganges.

19. The missive weapons of Sindhu, thwarted the thickening arrows of his adversary, and drove them back broken and flying as dust in the empty air.

20. As an extinguished lamp loses its light in the air, so the flashes of the fire arms disappeared in the sky, and nobody knew where they fled.

21. Having thus dispelled the shower of arrows, he sent a thick cloud of his weapons, appearing as hundreds of dead bodies flying in the air.

22. Vidúratha repelled them quickly by means of his better bolts, as a hurricane disperses the frightening clouds in the air.

23. Both the kings being thus baffled in their aims by the opposing arms, which were indiscriminately let loose against one another, laid hold on more potent missiles (which they had got as gifts of their gods to them).

24. Sindhu then let fly his magic missile the gift of a Gandharva to him, which kept his hostile army all spell-bound except Vidúratha’s self.

25. Struck with this weapon, the soldiers became as mute as moonstruck, staring in their looks, and appearing as dead bodies or as pictures in a painting.

26. As the soldiers of Vidúratha remained exorcised in their files, the king employed his instruments of a counter-charm to remove the spell.

27. This awakened the senses of Vidúratha’s men as the morning twilight discloses the bed of lotuses, and the rising sun opens their closed petals to light; while Sindhu like the raging sun darted his rage upon them.

28. He flung his serpentine weapons upon them, which bound them as fast as a band all about their bodies, and encircled the battle ground and air, like snakes twining round the craigs and rocks.

29. The ground was filled with snakes as the lake with the spreading stalks of lotuses, and the bodies of gigantic warriors were begirt by them, like hills by huge and horrible hydras.

30. Everything was overpowered by the poignant power of the poison, and the inhabitants of the hills and forests were benumbed by the venomous infection.

31. The smart poison spread a fiery heat all around, and the frozen snows like fire-brands sent forth their burning particles which were wafted by the hot winds in the air.

32. The armigerous Vidúratha who was equally skilled in arms, had then recourse to his Garuda or serpivorous weapons, which fled like mountainous eagles to all sides.

33. Their golden pinions spread in the sky on all sides, and embroidered the air with purple gold; and the flapping of their wings wheezed like a breeze, which blew away the poisonous effluvia afar in the air.

34. It made the snakes breathe out of their nostrils with a hissing, resembling the gurgling (ghurghur) of waters in a whirlpool in the sea.

35. The flying Garuda weapons devoured the creeping terrene serpents with a whistling noise (salsala), like that of the rising waters (water-spouts), in the act of their suction by Agastya—the sun.

36. The face of the ground delivered from its covering of these reptiles, again appeared to view, as the surface of the earth re-appeared to light, after its deliverance from the waters of the deluge.

37. The army of Garudas disappeared afterwards from sight, like a line of lamps put out by the wind, and the assemblage of clouds vanishing in autumn.

38. They fled like flying mountains for fear of the bolts of the thundering Indra; and vanished like the evanescent world seen in a dream, or as an aerial castle built by fancy.

39. Then king Sindhu shot his shots of darkness (smoke), which darkened the scene like the dark cave under the ground.