Other brave warriors such as the Cedis, the Pancalas, the
Kaikayas, the Karushas, the Kosalas, the Kanchis, and the Maghadhas, also
rushed forward. Their cars and steeds and elephants, all of the foremost
kind, and their fierce foot-soldiers, gladdened by the notes of diverse
instruments, seemed to dance and laugh. In the midst of that vast force,
came Vrikodara, riding on the neck of an elephant, and surrounded by many
foremost of elephant-soldiers, advancing against thy army. That fierce
and foremost of elephants, duly equipped, looked resplendent, like the
stone-built mansion on the top of the Udaya mountain, crowned with the
risen Sun. Its armour of iron, the foremost of its kind, studded with
costly gems, was as resplendent as the autumnal firmament bespangled with
stars. With a lance in his outstretched arm, his head decked with a
beautiful diadem, and possessed of the splendour of the meridian Sun at
autumn, Bhima began to burn his foes. Beholding that elephant from a
distance, Kshemadhurti, himself on an elephant, challenging, rushed
cheerfully towards Bhima who was more cheerful still. An encounter then
took place between those two elephants of fierce forms resembling two
huge hills topped with trees, each, fighting with the other as it liked.
Those two heroes, then, whose elephants thus encountered each other,
forcibly struck each other with lances endued with the splendour of solar
rays, and uttered loud roars. Separating, they then careered in circles
with their elephants, and each taking up a bow began to strike the other.
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