Pierced with those arrows
equipped with heads like the calf's tooth, Adhiratha's son of broad chest
looked resplendent like an Asoka or Palasa or Salmali decked with its
flowery load or a mountain overgrown with a forest of sandal trees.
Indeed, with those numerous arrows sticking to his body, Karna, O
monarch, in that battle, looked resplendent like the prince of mountains
with its top and glens overgrown with trees or decked with flowering
Karnikaras. Karna also shooting repeated showers of arrows, looked, with
those arrows constituting his rays, like the sun coursing towards the
Asta hills, with disc bright with crimson rays. Shafts, however, of keen
points, sped from Arjuna's arms, encountering in the welkin the blazing
arrows, resembling mighty snakes, sped from the arms of Adhiratha's son,
destroyed them all. Recovering his coolness, and shooting many shafts
that resembled angry snakes, Karna then pierced Partha with ten shafts
and Krishna with half a dozen, each of which looked like an angry snake.
Then Dhananjaya desired to shoot a mighty and terrible arrow, made wholly
of iron, resembling the poison of snake or fire in energy, and whose
whizz resembling the peal of Indra's thunder, and which was inspired with
the force of a high (celestial) weapon. At that time, when the hour of
Karna's death had come, Kala, approaching invisibly, and alluding to the
Brahmana's curse, and desirous of informing Karna that his death was
near, told him, "The Earth is devouring thy wheel!" Indeed, O foremost of
men, when the hour of Karna's death came, the high brahmastra that the
illustrious Bhargava had imparted unto him, escaped from his memory.
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