The ignorant take him for a mere mortal.
You should know the dark one for who he is,
and realize you never will defeat him,
nor those whom he protects. Do what is right,
otherwise you will certainly be destroyed.
Truth and wickedness are at war within you.
To save yourself and all the loyal warriors
who have pledged themselves to you—pull back!
Give the Pandavas their half of the kingdom
and live in harmony.”
But Duryodhana
made no reply. To give up at this point
was impossible, however many died,
however many brothers he would lose.
However much he knew, knew increasingly,
that he could never win, Duryodhana
grimly refused to countenance this knowledge,
and banished it, like a dreaded messenger
he could bury in his mind’s deepest recess.
He listened in silence. Then the two warriors
went their ways, and retired for the night.
On the fifth day, Bhishma arrayed his men
into the form of a huge crocodile.
The army of the Pandavas was a hawk
with giant wings outspread. At its beak
rode Bhima. Shikhandin and Dhrishtadyumna
were its eyes, and Arjuna, with Krishna,
rode at its neck, his celestial bow
held high so his troops could see it, and take heart,
his monkey banner flying fierce above him.
At first, in the ensuing battle, Bhishma
grasped the initiative, but then the Pandavas,
led by Bhima, penetrated deep
into the mouth of the crocodile array,
inflicting horrifying casualties.
In agitation, Duryodhana called
to Drona: “Guruji! You wish me well.
Bend every effort to defeat the Pandavas—
I rely on you.” Straight away, Drona
rushed at Satyaki, Krishna’s kinsman,
and fought him furiously. Then Bhima joined them
and soon the greatest warriors of both sides
were drawn into a skirmish so confused
that the spectators on the nearby hill
and the gandharvas watching from the sky
could not distinguish one side from the other.
Bodies and limbs were scattered everywhere
adorned with ornaments—glittering jewels
once buried in Golconda’s lavish mines
or scooped from deep under the Himalaya
now re-mingled with the reddened earth.
The choking dust cleared slightly. Arjuna
could be seen rushing against Bhishma,
with his bow Gandiva like a lightning flash
cutting through dark clouds in the firmament.
His arrows showered down on the Kauravas
and men and animals became confused.
Vast elephants plucked drivers from their chariots
and thrashed them against the ground repeatedly
as if they were broken branches, hair tossing
like leaves, until they were formless pulp.
Many duels between the greatest warriors
took place that day, in the midst of chaos.
Just before night, Satyaki, mighty warrior,
having killed ten thousand Kauravas,
was forced into retreat by Bhurishravas.
Immediately, Satyaki’s ten sons
leapt forward to challenge him. “Bhurishravas,
fight with us now, singly or together.
Whoever wins will achieve great renown.”
“I’ll fight and kill the lot of you at once,”
said Bhurishravas. And, indeed, he did,
bringing burning sorrow to their father.
The day came to an end with the slaughter
of twenty-five thousand Kaurava troops.
They had been sent forward by Duryodhana
with the objective of killing Arjuna
but before they could come close enough
to aim at him, they were utterly consumed
by the scorching onslaught of the Pandava.
At sunset, fighting finished for the day
and the armies of both sides withdrew.
During the hours of darkness, the two camps
were silent. There was no carousing now.
The men were too exhausted by their struggle,
their part in the rolling juggernaut of war
that held them in its vast machinery.
Now, they slept. Only the bark of jackals,
the muffled footfalls of the night sentries,
were heard.
But as dawn broke on the sixth day
a hum arose, that grew to busyness
and then swelled into a cacophony.
No fear, no hesitation, no dark thoughts.
Only resolve, and exhilaration
as the armies girded themselves for battle:
the clash of armor plates being fastened
around restless elephants and horses,
conches braying, cymbals, drums beating,
marching feet forming up for battle
into their vast arrays.
The Pandavas
formed as a crocodile; the Kauravas,
a crane. Then, with embroidered standards flying,
parasols raised over chariots,
the two armies set upon each other
and soon inflicted large-scale loss of life.
All this Sanjaya told Dhritarashtra.
“How is it,” said the blind king, “that our army
does not conquer easily? Our men
are excellently trained in every branch
of warfare; they are chosen for their skill,
not for their connections. They enjoy
generous pay, their families are cared for.
They are respectable, honest, disciplined—
and yet they’re being killed in vast numbers.
This can only be because the gods
have willed it so. And what is ordained
cannot be otherwise.”
“There is no need,”
said Sanjaya, “to implicate the gods.
What a man sows, he reaps, and this disaster
is the fruit of your own foolishness.
But listen to the way the day developed.”
Early on, heroic Bhima broke
through into the Kauravas’ crane formation,
pushing deep into the enemy lines.
The Kauravas exulted, “Now we’ve caught him!”
But Bhima, unafraid, took up his mace
and made a dash for Duryodhana’s brothers,
for he had sworn, “I will end the evil life
of every last one of Dhritarashtra’s sons
who mocked Draupadi in the gambling hall.”
Many of them died, and many hundreds
of the Kauravas’ fiercest fighting men.
Dhrishtadyumna, fearful for Bhima’s life,
plunged after him, following the trail
of elephants brought down by Bhima’s mace.
When Duryodhana saw him, he cried out,
“Death to the wicked son of Drupada!”
and spurred on his men. But Dhrishtadyumna
loosed Pramohana, an unearthly weapon,
which took away the Kaurava troops’ senses
so they fell unconscious to the ground. Drona
neutralized it with another weapon,
and the men sprang up, ready to fight again.
Drona, former guru to all the princes,
knew very well which side was in the right.
But he remembered whose food he had eaten
all these years, and what he owed the king.
With enormous energy, he attacked
the advancin
g Pandava battalions,
churning them up like eddies in a stream,
killing hundreds.
Yudhishthira, anxious
for Bhima’s safety, sent twelve warriors,
including Abhimanyu, Arjuna’s son,
together with their divisions, to support
Bhima, who was hard pressed. The Kauravas,
seeing those strong heroes advancing on them,
stopped attacking Bhima. Then there followed
a fierce battle. The sons of Dhritarashtra
and the sons of Kunti, with their followers,
fought with all their strength, and there was no one
who did not receive many painful wounds.
Young as he was, Abhimanyu fought
with dazzling skill. His gold-flecked arrows, flighted
with the gorgeous feathers of the kanka bird,
and tipped with tempered iron, hissed like snakes
as he danced on his chariot like an acrobat.
The battlefield resembled a lake of blood
whose grayish islands were slain elephants,
whose boats were chariots, whose floating debris
were bodies without number. Remarkable
that courage never failed on either side.
Finally, as the sun was sinking, Bhima
made an all-out assault on Duryodhana.
“Your miserable life is almost over.
Now you will pay for all your many insults,
for all the sorrow you piled on Draupadi
and Kunti, for the bitter deprivation
the sons of Pandu had to endure for years.
Prepare for death!” And Bhima bent his bow
and loosed shaft after shaft like blazing lightning.
Duryodhana’s standard, bearing the emblem
of a jeweled elephant, glittering,
was seen to topple, spin and fall to earth.
Then Bhima turned his bow on his hated cousin
and wounded him badly, smiling in delight.
Duryodhana’s brothers had to rescue him.
But Bhishma slaughtered many Pandava troops
before both sides retired for the night.
Duryodhana was carried to his tent
bleeding and faint. He was heavy-hearted
and said to Bhishma, “Our troops are well prepared,
brave and disciplined, yet the Pandavas
made carrion of them today. Oh, Grandfather,
I am consumed with grief.” Bhishma laughed
grimly. “The Pandavas and their strong allies,
Krishna above all, are tireless, mighty
in skill, and full of burning rage against you.
They will be difficult to overcome.
But I swear, I will strain every sinew
to give you victory and make you joyful,
even if I die in the attempt.
All the kings who have mustered in your cause
will do the same.” Duryodhana was consoled.
Bhishma gave him a salve, and the agony
of his deep wounds gradually abated.
35.
BHISHMA IMPLACABLE
Sanjaya went on with his account:
Day followed day in carnage on a scale
that could not have been imagined. Every night,
as the sun dipped out of sight, the fighting
was suspended, and the surviving troops
plodded back to camp, spent, sorrowful.
So many corpses, heads and limbs and trunks,
so many slaughtered animals of war,
lay crushed into the mud that, with the dawn,
the armies marched out over claggy ground
buzzing with blowflies feasting on rank flesh.
Best breathe through their mouths. Best not look down,
in case the sight of sightless eyes, parched mouths,
looked too much like their own. In case they saw
the mangled breastplate of a friend or brother.
But they were kshatriyas. They had always known
that they were on the earth to fight, kill, conquer,
above all, to be brave, in certain hope
of heavenly reward. That was their dharma.
It seemed the whole world was consumed by horror.
Yet, only a short walk away, farmers
were tending fields, feeding their soft-eyed oxen,
women were cooking, babies being born.
The next two days were slog and butchery,
death and heroism. In each army
hardly a man or horse or elephant
had not been wounded. Yet they battled on.
Many duels were fought, most inconclusive.
Arjuna invoked the Aindra weapon
and the Kauravas were put to flight,
floundering in terror and confusion
until Bhishma rescued them. The sight
of Arjuna, with his glittering diadem,
confronted by the stately Bhishma, dressed
all in white, drawn by his ice-white horses,
dazzled even the heavenly spectators.
Meanwhile, Drona went after Virata
and killed his horses and his charioteer.
Virata mounted the chariot of his son,
Shankha, and Drona, drawing back his bow,
aimed at Shankha an arrow as venomous
as a poisonous snake, striking him dead.
Virata withdrew, weeping for his son.
Yudhishthira, usually so mild, now
was incandescent with rage and energy.
His chariot seemed to appear everywhere
so that the Kaurava troops feared for their lives,
and indeed he massacred many hundreds
and wounded thousands, so that injured men,
their clothing bright with their life’s blood, resembled
a beautiful forest of kimshuka trees.
Shikhandin started an attack on Bhishma,
then retreated, as Shalya defended him.
“Remember your vow!” cried Yudhishthira,
“your promise to inflict death on Bhishma.”
But Bhishma, sworn not to fight Shikhandin,
instead, did battle with Yudhishthira
the Pandava’s fine horses.
Abhimanyu
fought with great flair and ferocity
against the brothers of Duryodhana,
but did not kill them, as he knew that Bhima
had sworn he would perform that deed himself.
When the sun sank below the distant hills,
the armies halted, and walked back to their tents.
In the camps, the soldiers were well cared for.
Arrows were extracted from their bodies
and wounds were dressed. Brahmins carried out
propitiatory rites for them, and poets
sang praise-songs to their bravery and skill.
On the eighth day, a youth came to Arjuna.
The young man was Iravat, Arjuna’s son
by Ulupi, daughter of the Naga king.
A warrior of immense abilities,
he had come to introduce himself
when Arjuna was living in Indra’s realm.
Arjuna had embraced him joyfully
and asked him to support the Pandavas
in their struggle to regain their kingdom.
Now Iravat was here.
He set to at once,
mounted on his beautiful chariot,
and, since he was a master of illusion,
he and his troops managed to confound
the bewildered Kauravas, killing hundreds.
Duryodhana, seeing what was happening,
asked the rakshasa Alambusha,
accomplished illusionist, to intervene.
He was related to the monstrous Baka,
whom Bhima had dispatched at Ekachakra.
&
nbsp; An extraordinary battle followed,
each fighter seeking to confuse the other
with trickery, while they went for the kill.
They were young, old, singular and many,
human and monstrous, all at different times.
At last, Iravat turned into a snake;
Alambusha, becoming a fierce eagle,
snapped him up, and quickly beheaded him.
Witnessing the death of Iravat,
Ghatotkacha cried out in grief and outrage—
roared so loudly that the ground vibrated,
deep-rooted trees keeled over, and the sky
echoed with the thunder of his cries.
The Kauravas shook at that unearthly sound.
Ghatotkacha, summoning his forces,
rushed against Duryodhana’s divisions.
“Now you will pay,” he cried, “for all your vileness
toward my fathers and lovely Draupadi.
Quit the field, or else endure my vengeance!”
Onslaughts of arrows followed, a deluge
pelting down onto the Kaurava army
and on Duryodhana in particular.
Bhishma, knowing the supernatural power
of Ghatotkacha, ordered reinforcements
to protect Duryodhana, and there began
a ferocious fight between Bhima’s son
and the best divisions of the Kauravas.
The battle was chaotic—so many standards
were shot down, it was impossible
to tell which side was which, and in the heat
and delirium of the moment, some were felled
by the weapons of their friends and kinsmen.
Elephants, urged on to pierce the enemy,
instead ripped open the flanks of their fellows,
or became entangled. Panicking horses,
dragged down by partners slaughtered in their traces,
pawed the ground wildly, struggling to break free.
As time went on, Ghatotkacha began
to tire. Yudhishthira, observing this,
sent Bhima to his aid. The mere approach
of the mace-swinging Pandava spread terror,
and many among the Kauravas took flight
to attack the enemy elsewhere in the field.
Duryodhana blazed up with renewed courage,
and made for Bhima, fracturing his bow.
Drona, seeing the danger, rushed forward,
and instantly was pierced by Bhima’s arrows
so deeply that he sank down, unconscious.
Drona’s son, Ashvatthaman, threw himself
quickly into the fray, but Ghatotkacha
created the illusion of defeat,
an apparition of a million corpses,
with all the greatest warriors—Duryodhana,
Drona, Ashvatthaman, Shalya—seeming