Behold, it is
strewn with darts and spiked clubs hurled by heroic hands, and swords and
diverse kinds of keen shafts and bows. Beasts of prey, assembled
together, are standing or sporting or lying down as it likes them!
Behold, O puissant hero, the field of battle is even such. At this sight,
O Janardana, I am burning with grief. In the destruction of the Pancalas
and the Kurus, O slayer of Madhu, I think, the five elements (of which
everything is made) have been destroyed. Fierce vultures and other birds,
in thousands, are dragging those blood-dyed bodies, and seizing them by
their armour, are devouring them. Who is there that could think of the
death of such heroes as Jayadratha and Karna and Drona and Bhishma and
Abhimanyu? Alas, though incapable of being slain, they have yet been
slain, O destroyer of Madhu! Behold, vultures and kankas and ravens and
hawks and dogs and jackals are feasting upon them. There, those tigers
among men, that fought on Duryodhanas side, and took the field in wrath,
are now lying like extinguished fires. All of them are worthy of sleeping
on soft and clean beds. But, alas, plunged into distress, they are
sleeping today on the bare ground. Bards reciting their praises used to
delight them before at proper times. They are now listening to the fierce
and inauspicious cries of jackals. Those illustrious heroes who used
formerly to sleep on costly beds with their limbs smeared with sandal
paste and powdered aloe, alas, now sleep on the dust! These vultures and
wolves and ravens have now become their ornaments.
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