The Whole Host Against Drona

Vyasa had come out of the darkness to Yudhishthira, told him that the rakshasa had been slain by death itself with Indra's dart for its instrument, told him that on the fifth day from that night the earth would be his, and then made himself invisible where he stood.

Sanjaya, telling it afterwards to a blind king in a hall, said that the son of Dharma obeyed him. He gave up the intention of going after Karna with his own hands.

He did not give up the grief. Ghatotkacha was dead in the middle of the night, and the king had loved that boy, who had carried the princess of Panchala on his back over ground she could not walk, twice as much as he loved Sahadeva. So the grief in him turned into orders.

He looked out over the field, where his vast host was being held in check by Bhima alone, and he spoke to Dhrishtadyumna.

"Resist the Pot-born! O scorcher of foes, thou hadst, clad in mail, and armed with bow and arrows and scimitar, sprung from fire, for the destruction of Drona. Cheerfully rush thou to battle. Thou needst have no fear."

The prince of the Panchalas had been born out of Drupada's sacrificial fire for one purpose only, and the king was reminding him of it in front of the army.

Then he named the rest, and the naming went on until there was nobody left to name. Janamejaya and Shikhandi, Durmukha's son and Yasodhara, were to rush at the Pot-born from every side. Nakula and Sahadeva and the sons of Draupadi and the Prabhadrakas. Drupada and Virata with their sons and brothers. Satyaki, the Kaikeyas, the Pandavas, Dhananjaya. And after the great names, the others.

"Let also all our car-warriors and all the elephants and horses we have, and all our foot-soldiers, overthrow the mighty car-warrior Drona in battle."

They went. Every division that had a man standing in it went, in the dark, at one old brahmana in a chariot.

And Drona, that foremost of all wielders of arms, received them.

Duryodhana rushed in to protect Drona's life, and the two hosts roared at each other, and then the thing that had been coming all night arrived.

The animals were tired. The men were tired. Great car-warriors, with their eyes closing and their arms spent, no longer knew what to do. That night of nine hours, said Sanjaya, seemed to them to be everything there was, and by midnight the Kshatriyas of both armies were cheerless and the quivers were empty.

What happened then was worse than a rout. Men who had modesty and energy and a regard for the duties of their order kept their places in the line and swayed there. Others let their weapons fall out of their hands and lay down where they were, on car-boxes, on the necks of elephants, on horseback, and slept, and men still awake sent those sleepers to Yama's abode without their ever knowing it. Some, dreaming, killed their own comrades. Some walked about the field blind with sleep and struck at whatever their hands found.

It was Arjuna who stopped it, in a voice loud enough to carry across the whole plain.

"All of you, with your animals, are worn out with exertion and blind with sleep. Ye warriors, ye are enveloped in darkness and with dust. Therefore, if ye like, ye may rest. Indeed, here, on the field of battle close your eyes for a while. Then when the moon will rise, ye Kurus and Pandavas, ye may again, having slept and taken rest, encounter each other for the sake of heaven."

The Kuru warriors took it up and shouted it along their own line, calling to Karna and to their king to hold. Both armies lay down.

And Dhritarashtra's own troops blessed the man who had been killing them since sunrise. "In thee are the Vedas as also all weapons. In thee are intelligence and prowess. In thee, O mighty-armed one, are righteousness and compassion for all creatures. Since we have been comforted by thee, we wish thy good, O Partha."

Then elephants breathed on the ground and cooled it, and the sleeping host looked like a picture drawn on canvas by skilful artists, and the moon came up out of the east like a lion out of a cave with a mane of yellow rays.

That sea of troops woke as an assemblage of lotuses opens, and began again.

Duryodhana did not lie down. He came to Drona's car with his anger already chosen, and he spoke to inspire the old man with joy and provoke him at the same time, which was the only way he knew how to speak to him.

"No mercy should have been shown to our foes while they were heartless and worn out with toil and taking rest, especially when they are all of sure aim. Desirous of doing what is agreeable to thee, we showed them kindness by then letting them alone. The tired Pandavas, however, have become stronger. As regards ourselves, we are, in every respect, losing in energy and strength. The Pandavas, protected by thee, are constantly gaining prosperity."

Then the flattery, which was the barb inside it.

"All weapons that are celestial and all those that appertain to Brahma exist in thee. I tell thee truly, that neither the Pandavas, nor ourselves, nor any other bowmen in the world, can be a match for thee while thou art engaged in battle. Without doubt, by means of thy celestial weapons thou art capable of destroying the three worlds with the gods, the Asuras, and the Gandharvas. The Pandavas are all afraid of thee. Thou, however, forgivest them, remembering that they were thy pupils, or, perhaps, owing to my ill luck."

Drona had been fighting since the eleventh day. He had killed Drupada's allies in heaps, he had taken the Sindhu king under his own protection and lost him, and he was seventy years and more of age, and his king had just told him in the hearing of the guard that he was going easy on the boys he had taught.

He answered in anger, and every word of the answer was a promise.

"Although I am so old, O Duryodhana, I am still exerting myself in battle to the utmost extent of might. All these men are unacquainted with weapons. I am, however, well-versed in them. If, from desire of victory, I slay these men, there can be no more ignoble act for me to do. That, however, which is in thy mind, be it good or bad, I will accomplish, O Kaurava, at thy command. It will not be otherwise. Putting forth my prowess in battle and slaying all the Panchalas, I will doff my armour, O king. I swear this to thee truly."

He would kill every Panchala on the field, and then he would take his armour off. He said the second half as calmly as the first.

Then Drona turned to the other thing his king had said, that Arjuna was worn out and could be finished in the morning.

"Thou thinkest that Arjuna, the son of Kunti, was worn out in battle. Listen to what I truly say regarding his prowess. If Savyasachin's wrath is excited, neither Gandharvas, nor Yakshas nor Rakshasas can venture to bear him."

He went through the record like a teacher reading marks. At Khandava that boy had encountered the chief of the celestials himself and baffled the pouring rain of Indra with his shafts. On the occasion of the tale of cattle, when the Gandharvas headed by Chitrasena carried the Kauravas off as prisoners, it was Arjuna who beat them and brought his cousins back. "That firm bowman rescued you, while you were being carried away." The Nivatakavachas, whom the gods themselves could not kill, he had killed, and thousands of Danavas in Hiranyapura he had vanquished alone.

"How can human beings then withstand him? O monarch, thou hast seen with thy own eyes how this host of thine, although exerting themselves so heroically, hath been destroyed by the son of Pandu."

Duryodhana heard his preceptor praising the enemy, and grew angrier.

"Myself and Dushasana, and Karna, and my maternal uncle, Shakuni, dividing this Bharata host into two divisions, shall today slay Arjuna in battle."

Drona laughed at him.

"Blessings to thee. What Kshatriya is there that would slay that bull amongst Kshatriyas, that unslayable one, the bearer of Gandiva? Neither the Lord of treasures, nor Indra, nor Yama, nor the Asuras, the Uragas, and the Rakshasas can stay Arjuna armed with weapons. Only they that are fools say such words as those thou hast said. Who is there that would return home in safety, having encountered Arjuna in battle?

"As regards thyself, thou art sinful and cruel and suspicious of everybody. Even them that are employed in thy welfare, thou art ready to rebuke in this way. Thou art the root of this hostility. Therefore, go thou against Arjuna. And let this maternal uncle of thine, this one addicted to gambling, skilled in dice, wedded to deception, versed in cunning and imposture, let this gambler conversant with the ways of deceiving vanquish the Pandavas in battle.

"With Karna in thy company thou hast often boasted in thy father's court that the three of you would slay the sons of Pandu. Accomplish thy vow. Be truthful in speech, with them. There thy mortal foe stands before thee. Thou hast practised charity. Thou hast obtained wealth to the measure of thy wish. Thou hast no debts. Do not fear. Fight now with the son of Pandu."

These words said, the battle commenced.

When three-fourths of the night had worn away the fighting had begun again, and both sides went into it elated, which is what men are when they have slept. Then Aruna, the charioteer of the sun, came up ahead of his master and weakened the moon, and the sky turned coppery, and the east reddened like a circular plate of gold.

And every man on that field, on both sides, got down.

They came off their cars and off their horses and out of the litters borne by men, and stood facing the sun with their palms joined, and said the prayers of the twilight of dawn, in the middle of a battle that had been going since the previous sunrise and had killed a rakshasa, an army and most of a night. Then they got back on and killed each other.

The Kuru host had been divided into two bodies as Duryodhana promised. Drona took one of them, with the king riding in front of him, and moved against the Somakas and the Panchalas.

Krishna saw the split and told Arjuna what to do with it. "Keeping thy foes to thy left, place this division to thy right." Arjuna obeyed the counsel and moved to the left of those two mighty bowmen, Drona and Karna.

Bhima understood what Krishna intended and said his own piece to his brother, who was standing at the very front of the army.

"O Arjuna, O Vibhatsu, listen to these words of mine. The time for that object for which Kshatriya ladies bring forth sons has now come. If at such a time thou dost not strive to win prosperity, thou shalt then act meanly like a veritable wretch. Putting forth thy prowess, pay the debt thou owest to Truth, Prosperity, Virtue, and Fame. O foremost of warriors, pierce this division, and keep these to thy right."

Urged by Bhima and by Kesava together, Savyasachin went in and prevailed over Drona and Karna and began to resist the enemy on every side, consuming the foremost of them like a raging conflagration. Duryodhana and Karna and Shakuni covered him with showers of shafts, and he baffled all three and put ten keen-pointed arrows into each of them.

After that nobody could see anything. The dust went up, the arrows came down, darkness set in at sunrise, and the kings on that field fought by guesswork and by the names men shouted, striking at voices.

Out of that blindness Drona did something simple. He drew off from the fighting, went north, and stood there.

He was alone, resplendent, blazing with energy, and Sanjaya says he looked like a fire without any smoke in it. The Pandava troops, seeing him standing apart and waiting, began to tremble. He was summoning the hostile army to come to him, like an elephant in rut, and the enemy became perfectly hopeless of vanquishing him, as the Danavas are hopeless of vanquishing Vasava.

What men do at such a moment is worth recording, and Sanjaya recorded it. Some became cheerless. Some, having energy, became angry instead. Some were filled with wonder. Some could not brook the challenge at all. Some squeezed their hands together. Some, deprived of their senses by rage, bit their lips. Some whirled their weapons and some rubbed their arms.

And some, with great energy and their souls under complete control, went at him.

The Panchalas went first, afflicted already by his shafts, contending in great pain. Then the two old kings, Drupada of Panchala, who had been Drona's friend as a boy and his enemy for forty years, and Virata of the Matsyas, in whose kitchens and stables the Pandavas had hidden through the thirteenth year. Behind them came three grandsons of Drupada and the Chedis.

Drona killed the three grandsons with three sharp shafts, one each, and the princes came off their cars dead. He beat the Chedis, the Kaikeyas and the Srinjayas. He beat every Matsya on the field.

Then Drupada and Virata shot showers of arrows at him together, and he covered them both, and they went on piercing him in a rage until he cut off both their bows with two broad-headed shafts. Virata sent ten lances and ten arrows at him. Drupada hurled a dart of iron decked with gold, like a large snake, at his car. Drona cut the ten lances out of the air, and then the dart with its gold and its lapis lazuli, and then, with one well-tempered broad-headed shaft for each of them, he sent both those old kings to the abode of Yama.

Dhrishtadyumna had watched his father and his brother's sons killed in front of him within a few minutes. He swore aloud, where all the car-warriors could hear it.

"Let me lose the merits of all my religious acts, as also my Kshatriya and my Brahma energy, if Drona escape me today with life, or if he succeed in vanquishing me."

The oath was magnificent and it changed nothing, because Drona was not standing alone any more.

Duryodhana and Karna and Shakuni and the uterine brothers of the king had closed round the preceptor according to their precedence, and behind that screen he was untouchable. The Panchalas struck at one side of him and Arjuna at the other, and struggle as they might, Sanjaya says, the Panchalas could not even gaze at him. Dhrishtadyumna advanced with his own division and stopped where the arrows stopped him.

And Bhima, watching the man who had sworn the oath sit at a distance from the man he had sworn it about, became highly angry, and pierced him with words.

"What man is there who being regarded as a Kshatriya, and who taking his birth in the race of Drupada, and who being the foremost of all persons possessing a knowledge of weapons, would only thus look at his foe stationed before him? What man having seen his sire and son slain, and especially, having sworn such an oath in the midst of the king, would thus be indifferent to his enemy?"

Then he pointed at Drona, and what he said about him was not an insult. It was an assessment, and it was accurate.

"Yonder stands Drona like a fire swelling with its own energy. Indeed, with bow and arrows constituting his fuel, he is consuming with his energy all the Kshatriyas. Soon will he annihilate the Pandava army."

And then, because there was nobody else left to do it, he took the job himself.

"Stand ye as spectators and behold my feat. Against Drona himself will I proceed."

Vrikodara went into Drona's array filled with rage, and began to afflict that host and rout it. He did not go round the screen of princes. He went through it.

Dhrishtadyumna, shamed, came after him, penetrated the same great host, and engaged Drona at last.

The battle that began there was one that Sanjaya, who had seen fourteen days of this war, said he had never seen or heard the like of before. Cars were entangled with one another and could not be got apart. Bodies were scattered over the whole field. Men crossing to another part of the line were killed on the way by people they never saw, and men running away were struck in the back, and men were struck in the side.

And while that was going on, quietly, behind the dust, the morning sun came up.

The men who had fought all night fought on into the daylight against the same men they had been fighting in the dark. Many of them, weak with hunger and thirst and worn out with exertion, lost their senses where they stood. Horses and elephants stood on the field with their limbs perfectly motionless. Steeds of the noblest breed trembled with the effort of dragging cars whose wheels had sunk into ground made soft by blood, and there was no path anywhere for a chariot, because of the dead and the dying and the animals that had come to eat them.

Sanjaya, who had to describe it to a man who could not see it, reached for washing-day. Swords hurled from the hands of heroes lay heaped on the field like heaps of cloths at the washing ground, and the sound of blades lifted and brought down in heroic arms was the sound of cloth being thrashed for wash. The river that ran off that field towards the regions of the dead had blood for its current, weapons for its fish, wails of pain for its roar and banners for its froth.

In all that host, he said, only two men were not afraid: Drona and Arjuna. Each side had exactly one refuge, and everyone who met either of those two went to Yama.

Then, out of the general confusion, the fighting sorted itself into four pairs. Karna took Bhima. Arjuna took the son of Bharadwaja. And Duryodhana with his brothers came against the twins.

Duryodhana got Nakula, and Nakula was pleased to see him.

Madri's son cheerfully shot hundreds of shafts and manoeuvred until he had placed the king of the Kurus on his right, which is the position a car-warrior wants and cannot usually get, and the Pandava troops gave him a great cheer for it. Duryodhana, put on the right by his own cousin in front of both armies, filled with rage and began to fight back from that very side, counteracting him wonderfully. Nakula, who knew every course a car can be driven in, worked to hold him there. But Duryodhana afflicted him with showers of shafts, resisted him on every side, and made him turn back, and this time it was the Kaurava troops who applauded.

Nakula did not go far. He turned in his car and called after the man, and what he said was very short, and thirteen years old.

"Wait. Wait."

Dushasana came at Sahadeva with such speed that the earth shook under the car.

Sahadeva did not shoot at him. He shot one broad-headed arrow and took off the head of the driver, head-gear and all, while the car was still coming, and he did it so quickly that neither Dushasana nor anybody in either army noticed that it had happened. The reins were not being held by anyone. The horses ran where they liked. That was how Dushasana learned that his driver was dead.

What he did then his enemies applauded. He was conversant with the management of steeds, and he took the reins himself and fought from a driverless car, fearlessly, with great activity and skill, and friends and foes alike called out at the sight.

Sahadeva shot the horses. Afflicted, they bolted, careering wherever they chose, and Dushasana had to put his bow down to catch at the reins and put the reins down to pick up his bow, and every time he laid one of them aside the son of Madri covered him with arrows.

Karna saw it and came to rescue him. Bhima met Karna first, drew his bow to its fullest stretch and put three broad-headed shafts into his chest and arms, and Karna, struck like a snake with a stick, stopped and turned on him.

They came so close so fast that neither could shoot. So they took up maces.

Bhima broke the shaft-pole of Karna's car at one blow, which the whole field thought wonderful. Karna hurled a mace at Bhima's car and Bhima broke it with his own. Bhima threw a heavy mace and Karna hit it in the air with volleys of beautiful winged shafts, and it came back towards the thrower like a snake afflicted by incantations, and on the way it snapped Bhima's great standard and knocked his driver senseless. Bhima answered with eight arrows and cut away Karna's standard, his bow and his leathern fence.

Karna took up another bow, gold-decked and invincible, and killed Bhima's horses, which were the colour of bears, and then both his drivers.

And Bhima, with his car ruined under him, jumped across into Nakula's, the way a lion jumps down on to a mountain summit.

Meanwhile the other pair had found each other, and the war stopped to watch.

Drona and Arjuna, teacher and student, fought in a way that stupefied the eyes and the minds of the men around them: the lightness of the hands, the sureness of the aim, the motions of the two cars. The warriors nearest them gave up fighting and trembled. Each kept trying to work his car round so as to place the other on his right, and neither could do it, and Sanjaya says the whole thing was like two hawks in the sky fighting over a piece of meat.

Whatever Drona did to defeat the son of Kunti, Arjuna did the same thing back at him, and it cancelled.

So Drona went to the weapons. He called up the Aindra, the Pasupata, the Tvashtra, the Vayavya and the Yamya astras, and as fast as they left his bow Dhananjaya destroyed them. He shrouded his pupil in the mightiest of the celestial weapons and every one was met and baffled.

And Drona, seeing his whole armoury turned back at him, applauded Arjuna in his heart. He thought himself, at that moment, superior to every man in the world who knew anything about arms, for the reason that this man had been his pupil.

The sky filled up. Celestials and Gandharvas in thousands, rishis, Siddhas, Apsaras and Yakshas gathered until the welkin seemed clouded over, and an invisible voice went through the firmament praising both of them, and the Siddhas said what they were seeing.

"This is no human nor Asura, nor Rakshasa, nor celestial, nor Gandharva battle. Without doubt this is a high Brahma encounter. Now the preceptor prevails over the son of Pandu, and then the son of Pandu prevails over Drona. No one can find any difference between them. If Rudra, dividing his own self into two portions, fights himself with himself, then may an instance be had to match this. Science, gathered in one place, exists in the preceptor. Science and means are in the son of Pandu."

Then Drona invoked the Brahma weapon.

The earth trembled with its mountains and waters and trees. Fierce winds got up. The seas swelled. Both armies were filled with fear when he lifted it.

Arjuna baffled it fearlessly with a Brahma weapon of his own, and the world went quiet again.

Neither of them could beat the other. That is all. The armies closed over the top of them and the dust came back, and nothing on that field could be distinguished any longer, and the shafts fell so thickly that the creatures who live in the air could find no passage through their own element.