The Son Bhima Beheaded

"Tell me, O Sanjaya," Dhritarashtra said, "how Karna, having caused a great slaughter, penetrated into the midst of the Pandava troops, and struck and afflicted king Yudhishthira. Who were those foremost of heroes among the Parthas that resisted Karna? Who were they whom Karna crushed before he could succeed in afflicting Yudhishthira?"

It was the second day of Karna's command, and the blind king in his hall was asking for a list of names. Sanjaya, who sat beside him with the sight that let him see the field, gave him one. Not all of the names on it were Pandava names.

"Beholding the Parthas headed by Dhrishtadyumna stationed for battle," Sanjaya said, "that crusher of foes, Karna, rushed impetuously against the Pancalas."

The Pancalas did not wait to be come at. Longing for victory, they rushed as quickly against him, like swans rushing towards the sea.

Then the conchs began, thousands of them from both hosts at once, a shrillness that seemed to pierce the heart, and under the conchs the fierce peal of thousands of drums, and under the drums the noise of elephants and steeds and cars and the leonine shouts of men. It seemed to Sanjaya that the whole Earth with her mountains and her trees and her oceans trembled with that sound, and the entire welkin covered with wind-tossed clouds, and the whole firmament with the Sun and the Moon and the stars. Every creature on the field took the noise to be exactly that, the shaking of the world, and became agitated.

Those among them that were endued with little strength fell dead where they stood, before a single arrow had been loosed at them.

Then Karna, excited with great wrath, quickly invoked his weapons and began to smite the Pandava army as Maghavat smites the army of the Asuras.

Sanjaya counted for the king, because counting was the only way to tell it. Penetrating into the Pandava host and shooting his arrows, Karna slew seven and seventy of the foremost warriors among the Prabhadrakas, who were the picked men of the Pancala host. Then, with five and twenty sharp shafts equipped with goodly wings, he slew five and twenty Pancalas. Then, with cloth-yard shafts winged with gold and capable of piercing the bodies of all foes, he slew the Cedis by hundreds and by thousands.

While he was employed in achieving those superhuman feats, large throngs of Pancala cars came round him quickly on every side, and the throngs made no difference. Aiming five irresistible shafts, Karna, who was called Vaikartana and also Vrisha, killed five Pancala warriors with them, and their names were Bhanudeva and Citrasena and Senavindu and Tapana and Surasena.

While the Pancala heroes were being slaughtered in that manner, loud cries of "Oh" and "Alas" arose from among the Pancala host, and it is worth noticing that this is the only sound the Pancalas make in Sanjaya's whole account of that hour. They came, they were counted, and they cried out.

Then ten car-warriors among the Pancalas surrounded him. Them, too, Karna speedily slew with his shafts.

That was the state of the field when the Pandavas came for him in force, and the blind king should understand that they did not come to test him. They came because there was nothing else left to do with a man who was emptying an army by arithmetic.

Three of Karna's sons were on the field around him, and where each of them stood is worth knowing, because it explains everything that happened next.

The two protectors of Karna's car wheels were Sushena and Satyasena, and Sanjaya calls them invincible and says they fought reckless of their very lives. The wheel of a car is the place where a warrior cannot see, and the two young men had taken it. The eldest son of Karna, the mighty car-warrior Vrishasena, protected his father's rear, which is the other place a man cannot see.

Against that car came Dhrishtadyumna and Satyaki and the five sons of Draupadi. Vrikodara came, and Janamejaya the Pancala prince, and Shikhandi. Many of the foremost warriors among the Prabhadrakas came, and many among the Cedis, and the Kaikayas, and the Pancalas, and the twins Nakula and Sahadeva, and the Matsyas, all of them clad in mail, all of them rushing fiercely upon Radha's son from the desire of slaying him.

They poured diverse kinds of weapons on him and thick showers of arrows, and began to afflict him as the clouds afflict the breast of a mountain in the season of rains.

Desirous of rescuing their father, the sons of Karna, all of whom were effectual smiters, and many other heroes of the Kaurava army, resisted those heroes.

So the fight in front of Karna's car became a fight between two sets of sons. The sons of Draupadi were there because their father's brothers had a war to win. The sons of Karna were there because a man who is surrounded is a man whose children come and stand between him and the arrows, and there is no other reason needed.

Bhima went in at the wheel.

Sushena got the first stroke of that encounter, and it was a good one.

With a broad-headed arrow he cut off the bow of Bhimasena, and then, while the strongest man on the field stood on his car with a useless stave in his hands, he pierced Bhima himself with seven cloth-yard shafts in the chest and uttered a loud roar.

Bhima did not answer the roar. He took up another tough bow, strung it quickly, and cut off Sushena's bow with the first thing he shot.

Then he was in it. Excited with rage, and, as Sanjaya puts it, as if dancing on his car, he pierced Sushena himself with ten arrows. And then, within the twinkling of an eye, without turning aside from the man in front of him or giving any sign that he had changed his mind about anything, he put seventy sharp shafts into Karna.

That is the moment to hold, because it is the hinge of the whole passage. Bhima had a young man disarmed in front of him and the young man's father a few paces beyond, and he divided his attention between them without a pause, ten arrows to the son and seventy to the father, the way a man beats out a fire on two sides at once.

Karna was the general of the Kaurava host that day and the greatest bowman on the field, and for that instant he was being handled by Vrikodara as one obstacle among several.

And Bhima was not finished with the sons of Karna. He had not even begun with them. He reached back for ten more shafts, and the boy those shafts were meant for was not Sushena.

His name was Bhanusena, and he was another son of Karna, and Sanjaya gives him one sentence of life before he gives him his death.

With ten shafts Bhima felled Bhanusena, and felled with him his steeds, his driver, his weapons, and his standard, so that the whole apparatus of a car-warrior went over together, in the very sight of the young man's friends.

Then the razor-headed arrow.

The sightly head of that youth, graced with a face as beautiful as the Moon, cut off with a razor-headed arrow, looked like a lotus plucked from its stalk.

Sanjaya was describing that field to a father, and he did not soften it, and he did not dwell on it either. There is no speech from Bhanusena and no speech about him. There is no cry from Karna recorded at that moment, though the phrase in the very sight of the latter's friends is doing quiet work, since the friends in question are Karna's friends, the men whose whole business on that part of the field was to keep this from happening. They saw it. That is all the account says about what they felt.

Nor does anybody stop. Having slain Karna's son, Bhima began to afflict the Kaurava troops once more, and the sentence turns over to the next thing as if a standard had fallen and not a boy.

This is what the epic does with the children of great men in the Karna Parva. Abhimanyu had gone down in a ring of car-warriors on the thirteenth day and the whole army had heard about it. Bhanusena went down in half a verse, with his face compared to the moon, in front of people who had come to the field for the express purpose of standing between him and Bhima, and the battle closed over him.

What Bhima did next is a list, and the list is the point.

Cutting off the bows of Kripa and of Hridika's son Kritavarma, he began to afflict those two also. He pierced Duhshasana with three arrows made wholly of iron and Shakuni with six. He deprived Uluka, the son of Shakuni, and Uluka's brother Patatri of their cars. Kripa was the preceptor of the Kuru princes and Kritavarma a lord of the Bhojas, and Bhima went through both of them and four more in the space of two sentences, on his way back to the thing he wanted.

He came back to Sushena.

"Thou art slain," Bhima said, addressing him, and took up an arrow.

Karna cut that arrow out of the air and struck Bhima himself with three shafts.

Then Bhima took up another straight arrow of great impetuosity and sped it at Sushena, and Vrisha cut that one also.

Twice the father put his own bow between his son and the man who had just beheaded another of his sons, and twice it was enough, and then Karna stopped waiting for the third arrow. Desirous of rescuing his son, and wishing to make an end of the cruel Bhimasena, he struck Bhima with three and seventy fierce arrows at once.

Seventy-three. It is the number Karna spends when he is not fighting for a kingdom or a friend or a reputation, and Sanjaya sets it down plainly for a listening father to hear.

Bhima stood in it. Sushena, whose bow had been cut and whose life had twice been bought back for him, took up an excellent bow capable of bearing a great strain, and turned to look for someone else.

Sushena found Nakula, and pierced him with five arrows in the arms and the chest.

Nakula pierced him back with twenty strong shafts capable of bearing a great strain, and uttered a loud roar, and Sanjaya says the roar inspired Karna with fright, which is the first fear anybody records in him that day and is not on his own account. Sushena, however, pierced Nakula with ten shafts and cut off his bow with a razor-headed arrow. Nakula, insensate with rage, took up another and resisted him with nine. Then, shrouding all the quarters with showers of arrows, the son of Madri slew Sushena's driver, pierced Sushena with three shafts and then with three broad-headed arrows, and cut his strong bow into three fragments. Sushena, deprived of his senses in rage, took up another bow and pierced Nakula with sixty arrows and Sahadeva with seven. The battle between them raged like the battle of the gods and the Asuras.

Behind the car, Satyaki was at work on the eldest brother. He slew the driver of Vrishasena with three arrows, cut off his bow with a broad-headed shaft, struck his steeds with seven, crushed his standard with another, and put three arrows into Vrishasena's chest. Vrishasena became senseless on his car, and within the twinkling of an eye stood up again. Deprived of driver and steeds and standard, he took a sword and a shield and rushed at Yuyudhana on foot to kill him, and Satyaki met the charge by striking at the sword and the shield with ten arrows headed like a boar's ear.

Then Duhshasana, seeing Vrishasena made carless and weaponless, took him up on his own car and bore him away from the spot and set him on another vehicle.

Karna had four sons on that field at the start of the afternoon. Three of them were still standing.

Vrishasena came back on the new car and paid out what he owed. He pierced the five sons of Draupadi with seventy arrows and Yuyudhana with five, Bhimasena with four and sixty, Sahadeva with five, Nakula with thirty, Satanika with seven, Shikhandi with ten, and king Yudhishthira with a hundred. Then, invincible, he went back to protecting the rear of his father.

Satyaki made Duhshasana driverless and steedless and carless with nine times nine arrows made wholly of iron, and struck him with ten shafts in the forehead, and the Kuru prince mounted another car and went on fighting from within Karna's division.

Then they all turned on Karna together. Dhrishtadyumna pierced him with ten arrows, the sons of Draupadi with three and seventy, Yuyudhana with seven, Bhimasena with four and sixty, Sahadeva with seven, Nakula with thirty, Satanika with seven, Shikhandi with ten, and Yudhishthira with a hundred. They began to grind that great bowman among them.

And the Suta's son, performing quick evolutions with his car, pierced every one of those warriors with ten arrows.

"We then witnessed," Sanjaya said, "the lightness of hand displayed by the high-souled Karna and the power of his weapons. People could not notice when he took up his arrows, when he aimed them, and when he let them off. They only beheld his enemies dying fast in consequence of his wrath."

The sky and the firmament and the Earth and all the quarters were shrouded with sharp arrows, and the firmament looked as if it were covered with red clouds. Armed with the bow and as if dancing on his car, the son of Radha pierced each of his assailants with three times as many arrows as each had put into him, and then pierced each of them again, with steeds and driver and car and standard, ten apiece, and roared.

His assailants gave him a way, and he went through it.

Unresisted now, he penetrated into the division commanded by the Pandava king, destroyed thirty cars of the unreturning Cedis, and struck Yudhishthira with many sharp arrows. Shikhandi and Satyaki and many others closed round their king to rescue him, and all the brave bowmen of the Kaurava army closed round Karna, and the drums began again, and the two hosts encountered each other once more without fear, the one headed by the Suta's son and the other by Yudhishthira.

Somewhere behind them, in the churned ground the armies had already passed over, a boy with a face like the moon lay in the wreck of his car with his standard down beside him, and nobody in either host turned round.