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Salutations to thee that art attached, that art freed from all attachments, that art of the form of Yoga contemplation, and that art adorned with a garland of Akshas. Salutations to thee that art united as cause and disunited as effects, and that art the form of shadow and of light. Salutations to thee that art amiable, and that art frightful, and that art exceedingly so.

Behold also, O Partha, those riderless and driverless cars that had at one time resembled celestial vehicles or the vapoury forms in the evening sky, now lying on the ground, with standards and banners and Akshas and yokes cut into pieces, and with broken shafts and crests, O lord.

And Vibhatsu also cut off the trunks of elephants and the necks of steeds and the Akshas of cars all around, as also blood-dyed horsemen, armed with spears and lances, with razor-faced arrows into two or three fragments. And steeds and foremost of elephants and standards and umbrellas and bows and Yak-tails and heads fell fast on all sides.

Strewn with Anuskaras and quivers, with standards and banners, with Upaskaras and Adhishthanas, with shafts and crests of cars, with broken wheels and beautiful Akshas in profusion, with yokes and trappings of steeds, with belts and bows and arrows, with elephants, housings, with spiked maces and hooks of iron, with darts and short arrows, with spears and pikes, with Kundas and clubs, with Sataghnis and Bhushandis, with scimitars and axes, with short and heavy clubs and mallets, with maces and Kunapas, with whips decked with gold, O bull of Bharata's race, with the bells and diverse other ornaments of mighty elephants, with floral garlands and various kinds of decorations, and with costly robes all loosened from the bodies of men and animals, the earth shines brilliantly, like the autumnal firmament with planets and stars.

With darts of the measure of Akshas, and shafts also they continued to mangle each other, like a couple of tigers or of mighty elephants with their teeth or tusks. Piercing each other's body, aiming shafts at each other, scorching each other with clouds of arrows, they became incapable of being gazed at.

And covered with the lifeless forms of men and elephants and steeds, with flagstaffs and the bottoms of cars, with the adornments of cars and elephants and steeds with broken cars and wheels and Akshas and Kuveras, with loud-twanged bows decked with gold, and gold-winged arrows and shafts in thousands, shot by Karna and Bhima, resembling snakes just freed from their sloughs, with countless lances and spears and scimitars and battleaxes, with maces and clubs and axes, all adorned with gold, with standards of diverse shapes, and darts and spiked clubs, and with beautiful Sataghnis, the earth, O Bharata, looked resplendent.

Like the autumnal firmament bespangled with stars, the field of battle there became strewn with car-wheels broken and crushed by means of his mighty weapons with innumerable Akshas and beautiful cart-shafts reduced to fragments, with crushed elephants and fallen standards, with coats of mail and shields scattered all about, with garlands and ornaments and robes and Anuskarshas, O sire!

They struck each other with their clenched fists, falling with the sound of thunder. Excited with rage, they encountered each other with car-wheels, and yokes, and Akshas and Adhishthanas, and Upaskaras, in fact, with anything that came in their way. Encountering each other thus and both covered with blood, they looked like a couple of infuriated elephants of gigantic size.

Having recourse to illusion, the latter, then, jumped down from that car of his, whose steeds and wheels and Akshas and standard and Kuvara had all been crushed into pieces. Relying on his illusion, he poured a copious shower of blood. The sky then seemed to be overspread with a mass of black clouds adorned with flashes of lightning.

Others, struck with panic and deprived of their senses, themselves striking the steeds of their cars with their feet, fled precipitately. Others, riding on cars with broken yokes and wheels and Akshas, fled afflicted with fear. Others on horseback were carried away, their bodies half displaced from their saddles.