Although knowing that those shafts of the high-souled
son of Drona employed in shooting were really inexhaustible, yet Pandya,
that bull among men, cut them all into pieces. The antagonist of
Ashvatthama, carefully cutting off all those shafts shot by the latter,
then slew with his own keen shafts the two protectors of the latter's car
wheels in that encounter. Beholding the lightness of hand displayed by
his foe, Drona's son, drawing his bow to a circle, began to shoot his
arrows like a mass of clouds pouring torrents of rain. During that space
of time, O sire, which consisted only of the eighth part of a day, the
son of Drona shot as many arrows as were carried on eight carts each
drawn by eight bullocks. Almost all those men that then beheld
Ashvatthama, who at the time looked like the Destroyer himself filled
with rage, or rather the Destroyer of the Destroyer, lost their senses.
Like a mass of clouds at the close of summer drenching with torrents of
rain, the Earth with her mountains and trees, the preceptor's son poured
on that hostile force his arrowy shower. Baffling with the Vayavya weapon
that unbearable shower of arrows shot by the Ashvatthama-cloud, the
Pandya-wind, filled with joy, uttered loud roars. Then Drona's son
cutting off the standard, smeared with sandal-paste and other perfumed
unguents and bearing the device of the Malaya mountain on it, of the
roaring Pandya, slew the four steeds of the latter. Slaying then his
foe's driver with a single shaft, and cutting off with a crescent-shaped
arrow the bow also of that warrior whose twang resembled the roar of the
clouds, Ashvatthama cut off his enemy's car into minute fragments.
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