‘ “He inhaled the fragrance of his head and again spoke these words. ‘O Dhananjaya! O mighty-armed one! I have been greatly honoured by you. May you again attain victory and eternal greatness.’ Arjuna replied, ‘Radheya is evil in his deeds and insolent about his strength. I will approach him in the battle and slay him, and his relatives, with arrows. He stretched a firm bow and afflicted you with arrows. Karna will reap the terrible consequence of that deed today. O lord of the earth! Having slain Karna today, I will return to you. I will give you the good news and follow you. I tell you this truthfully. Without killing Karna today, I will not return I am touching your feet and telling you this truthfully.’ Having pacified Dharmaraja, Partha was cheerful in his mind. Prepared to kill the son of a suta, Partha spoke to Govinda. ‘Prepare the chariot again and yoke the best of horses. Let the great chariot be equipped with all the weapons. Get horse riders to cover the well-trained horses. Let all kinds of equipment quickly be arranged on the chariot.’ O great king! Having been thus addressed by the great-souled Phalguna, Krishna told Daruka,621 ‘Do everything that Arjuna, foremost among the Bharatas and best among all archers, has asked to be done.’ O supreme among kings! Having been instructed by Krishna, Daruka yoked and covered the chariot, which scorched the enemy, with the skins of tigers. The chariot was yoked by the great-souled Daruka. He622 sought Dharmaraja’s leave and the blessings of the brahmanas. With auspicious rites and benedictions, he ascended that supreme chariot. The immensely wise King Dharmaraja Yudhishthira blessed him, supremely delighted at the prospect of Karna’s death.
‘ “O descendant of the Bharata lineage! On seeing the great archer depart, all the beings thought that Karna had already been slain by the great-souled Pandava. O king! On every side, all the directions sparkled. O lord of men! At that time, blue jays, shatapatras623 and curlews circumambulated the descendant of the Pandu lineage. There were many other sacred and auspicious male birds.624 They were cheerful in form and seemed to urge Arjuna to hurry to the field of battle. O lord of the earth! Herons, vultures, crows and wild crows advanced in front of him, wishing to devour,625 and signified an ominous portent. The signs were good and auspicious for Partha. They signified the destruction and death of Karna’s soldiers. As Partha advanced, he perspired copiously. He was extremely anxious about how he would accomplish his objective.
‘ “On seeing that Partha was overcome with anxiety as he proceeded, Madhusudana spoke to the wielder of Gandiva. ‘O wielder of Gandiva! With this bow, you have defeated those in battle, whom no other man is capable of vanquishing. We have seen many brave ones, equal to Shakra in their valour. Having encountered you in a battle, those brave ones have attained the supreme objective. O venerable one! Whether it is Drona, Bhishma, Bhagadatta, Vinda and Anuvinda from Avanti, Sudakshina from Kamboja, Shrutayusha and the immensely valorous Achyutayusha, none of them have been able to do anything against you. There is no one who can withstand you. You possess celestial weapons. You are dexterous and strong. O Arjuna! You aim, strike and hit the target with yoga. You are not confused in a battle and know about what must be done. You are capable of killing all the gods and asuras, together with everything mobile and immobile. O Partha! There is no warrior or man on this earth who is equal to you in a battle. There are kshatriyas who pick up bows and are invincible in battle. But I have not seen, or heard of, anyone like you among them, or among the supreme gods. Brahma, the creator of all beings, constructed the extremely wonderful Gandiva.626 O Partha! This is what you use to fight and that is the reason there is no one who is your equal. O Pandava! However, I must speak words that are beneficial for you. O mighty-armed one! Do not think lightly of Karna. He is the ornament of a battle. Karna is strong and insolent. He is skilled in weapons and a maharatha. He is accomplished and colourful in fighting. He knows about time and place.627 He is like the fire in his energy. He is like the wind in his speed. He is like Yama in his anger. The powerful one is capable of withstanding a lion. The mighty-armed one’s chest is one aratni in breadth.628 He is extremely difficult to defeat. He is very proud and brave. He is extremely valiant and handsome. He has all the qualities of a warrior and is terrible to his enemies. He has always hated the Pandavas and has been engaged in the welfare of the sons of Dhritarashtra. Radheya cannot be killed by any enemy, even the gods, including Vasava. In my view, you are the only exception. Today, slay the son of a suta. All the warriors made out of flesh and blood, and even the gods, are incapable of defeating him in a battle, even if they were to unite. The evil-souled one is wicked in intelligence. He is cruel. His evil intelligence has always been used to bring injury to the Pandaveyas. He has opposed the Pandaveyas. Kill Karna today and accomplish your objective. He thinks himself to be brave, as does the wicked Suyodhana. He is the root of all wickedness. O Dhananjaya! Defeat the son of a suta.’” ’
Chapter 1201(51)
‘Sanjaya said, “Keshava, immeasurable in his soul, again spoke these words to Arjuna, who, in every way, had firmed up his resolution to kill Karna. ‘O descendant of the Bharata lineage! Today is the seventeenth day629 of this extremely terrible destruction of men, elephants and horses. Those on your side possessed an extremely large army and so did the enemy. O lord of the earth! Having clashed against each other in the battle, only remnants are left on both sides. O Partha! The Kouravas possessed innumerable elephants and horses. Having encountered you as an enemy, they have been destroyed in the field of battle. All these Panchalas, the Srinjayas and the others are unassailable. They united and stationed themselves with the Pandavas. O slayer of enemies! Protected by you, the Panchalas, the Pandavas, the Matsyas, the Karushas, the Chedis and the Kekayas caused a great destruction of the enemy. O son!630 In a battle, who is capable of vanquishing the assembled Kouravas, other than the maharatha Pandavas, who are protected by you in the encounter? You are capable of defeating the gods, asuras and men in a battle, even if the three worlds rise up against you, not to speak of the army of the Kouravas. O tiger among men! Who other than you was capable of vanquishing King Bhagadatta, who was Vasava’s equal? O Partha! O unblemished one! This large army has been protected by you and all the kings are incapable of even glancing at it. O Partha! It is because they have always been protected by you that Dhrishtadyumna and Shikhandi could bring down Bhishma and Drona in the battle. O Partha! Otherwise, in the battle, how could those two maharatha Panchalas have defeated Bhishma and Drona in an encounter? They were like Shakra in their valour. In a battle, who could have withstood Shantanu’s son,631 Drona, Vaikartana, Kripa, Drona’s son, Somadatta’s son,632 Kritavarma, Saindhava,633 the king of Madra and King Suyodhana? They were brave and skilled in the use of weapons in a battle. None of them retreated. They were the leaders of akshouhinis. They were fierce, angry and unassailable in a battle. Many arrays have been destroyed. Horses, chariots and elephants have been exhausted. There were fierce and intolerant kshatriyas from many kingdoms. O descendant of the Bharata lineage! There were Govasas, Dasamiyas, Vasatis, Vratyas, Vatadhanas and the proud Bhojas. O descendant of the Bharata lineage! That large army was destroyed in Brahmakshetra.634 Having clashed against you, they advanced towards death, with their horses, chariots and elephants. There were Tukharas, Yavanas, Khashas, Darvabhisaras, Daradas, Shakas, Ramathas, Tanganas, Andhrakas, Pulindas, Kiratas who are terrible in their valour, mlecchas, those from the mountainous regions and those who live on the boundaries of the ocean. They were fierce and the performers of terrible deeds. They were insolent, delighted in battle and were strong, with firm fists. For Suyodhana’s sake, they angrily sided with the Kurus. O scorcher of enemies! Other than you, no one else was capable of defeating them in a battle. We saw the immensely strong formations of the sons of Dhritarashtra being destroyed. Without you as a protector, which man could have advanced against that? That army, covered with dust, looked like a swollen ocean. O lord! Protected by you, the angry Pandavas shattered and destroyed it. Jayatsena, the lord of Magadha, was immensely strong. Since he was killed in the battle by
Abhimanyu, seven days have passed.635 There were ten thousand elephants, terrible in their deeds, which followed the king.636 Bhima killed them with his club. Using his great force, he destroyed hundreds of other elephants and chariots. O son!637 Thus did the extremely fearful battle continue. O Pandava! Having encountered Bhimasena and you, with their horses, chariots and elephants, the Kouravas went to the world of the dead. O Partha! The vanguard of the army was destroyed by the Pandavas. O venerable one! Bhishma showered down fierce arrows. He was skilled in the use of harsh weapons and enveloped and killed the Chedis, the Kashis, the Panchalas, the Karushas, the Matsyas and the Kekayas with his arrows. Arrows issued from his bow and mangled the bodies of the enemy. Those gold-tufted arrows covered the entire sky. Having followed the tenth direction, they slew horses, rathas and elephants.638 Those arrows were released so that they avoided those nine undesirable directions. Bhishma slaughtered your troops for ten days. He emptied the seats of chariots and killed horses, elephants and steeds.639 He showed a form in battle that was like that of Rudra or Upendra.640 He afflicted the Pandava soldiers and caused great destruction. He slaughtered kings from Panchala, Chedi and Kekaya. He destroyed the Pandava army, which teemed with men, horses and elephants. It was as if he was rescuing the wicked Suyodhana, who was submerged in an ocean without a raft. He roamed around in the battle, scorching like the sun. The Srinjayas and the other kings were incapable of glancing towards him. Desiring victory, he roamed around in the battle. However, the Pandavas made every effort and attacked him violently. He single-handedly drove the Pandavas and the Srinjayas away in the encounter and came to be regarded as the only one who was brave. Shikhandi was protected by you and killed the maharatha, tiger among men, with his sharp and straight-tufted arrows. The grandfather was brought down in that way and is lying down on a bed of arrows. O tiger among men! Having encountered you, he was like a crow clashing against a vulture. Drona fought fiercely for five days, destroying the army of the enemy. He constructed a vyuha in the great battle and brought down maharathas. The maharatha protected Jayadratha in the battle. When fighting took place during the night,641 he was as fierce as Yama and consumed beings. Bharadvaja’s powerful and brave son clashed against Dhrishtadyumna and attained the supreme objective. Today is the second day after that. On that day’s battle, had you not checked the enemy in the encounter, the son of a suta and the other rathas, Drona would not have been killed. You restrained the entire army of the sons of Dhritarashtra. O Dhananjaya! That is how Parshata killed Drona in the battle. Which other kshatriya would have been able to accomplish this in the battle? O Partha! That is also the way you accomplished the death of Jayadratha. You countered the large army and killed the brave kings. King Saindhava was killed through the strength of your weapons and your energy. The kings know that the death of the king of Sindhu was extraordinary. O Partha! But since you know that you are a maharatha, it wasn’t that wonderful. O descendant of the Bharata lineage! If all these kshatriyas clash against you, I think they will be tormented by you and killed on a single day. That is my view. O Partha! With the likes of Bhishma and Drona killed, this extremely fierce army of the sons of Dhritarashtra can be regarded as having lost all its brave warriors in the battle. The best of warriors have been destroyed. Horses, men and elephants have been killed. The army of the Bharatas is like the sky without radiance, devoid of the sun, the moon and the stars. O Partha! Because of Bhima’s valour, the army has been devastated in the battle, like the army of the asuras through Shakra’s valour in ancient times.
‘ “‘Other than those who have been slain, only five maharathas remain—Ashvatthama, Kritavarma, Karna, the lord of Madra and Kripa. O tiger among men! If you kill those five maharathas today, you will destroy the enemies and give the kingdom, with its islands and cities, to the king. Let Partha,642 whose energy and prosperity are infinite, obtain the earth, with its sky, waters, the nether regions, mountains and large forests. Just as Vishnu killed daityas and danavas in earlier times, you will give the earth to the king, like Hari643 to Shakra. With the enemies slain by you today, the Panchalas will rejoice, like the gods when the danavas were slain by Vishnu. Do not honour your preceptor Drona, foremost among men, and show compassion towards Ashvatthama, or show mercy towards Kripa because of the honour due to a preceptor, or show excessive respect towards your relatives and honour your brothers,644 or encounter Kritavarma and don’t convey him to Yama’s abode, or clash against your mother’s brother, Shalya, the lord of Madra,645 and not strike him down and kill him because of compassion. Karna is evil-minded and extremely injurious towards the Pandavas. O best of men! Kill him today with your sharp arrows. This is your supreme task and there is nothing wrong in it. We applaud this and there is no sin attached to it. O unblemished one! O Arjuna! Whether it was the attempt to burn down your mother with her sons in the night,646 or whatever Suyodhana attempted towards you in the course of the gambling match, the evil-souled Karna was the root of all that. Suyodhana always thought that he would be saved by Karna and angrily tried to seize me too.647 O one who grants honours! It is the firm belief of that Indra among men, Dhritarashtra’s son, that Karna will certainly defeat all the Parthas in battle. O Kounteya! Though Dhritarashtra’s son knew about your strength, he found pleasure in a conflict with you because he depended on Karna. Karna has always said, “I will defeat the assembled Parthas, Vasudeva and the kings in the great battle.” The evil-minded one has encouraged Dhritarashtra’s evil-souled son and roared in the assembly hall. O descendant of the Bharata lineage! Kill Karna today. In all the evil acts that Dhritarashtra’s son has done towards you, in all of these, the evil-souled and extremely wicked Karna has been present. Subhadra’s brave son had the eyes of a bull. We saw him killed by six cruel maharathas on the side of the sons of Dhritarashtra.648 The brave maharatha made Drona, Drona’s son and Kripa tremble. The maharatha made elephants and chariots bereft of men. His shoulders were like that of a bull and he brought fame to the Kuru and Vrishni lineages. He deprived steeds of horse riders and foot soldiers of weapons and lives. He destroyed the soldiers and maharathas. He conveyed large numbers of men, horses and elephants to Yama’s eternal abode. Subhadra’s son advanced, scorching the army with his arrows. O friend! O lord! I tell you truthfully that my limbs burn at the thought that even then, the evil-souled Karna attacked him. In that battle, he was unable to remain in front of Abhimanyu. He was mangled by the arrows of Subhadra’s son. He was unconscious and blood flowed from his body. He blazed and sighed in rage. However, afflicted by the arrows, he retreated. He retreated and lost all enterprise. He gave up all hope of remaining alive. He was supremely unconscious in that battle and exhausted because of the blows. Hearing the appropriate, but cruel, words of Drona in the battle then, Karna severed his bow. When he was devoid of weapons in that battle, five maharathas, skilled in deceit, killed him with their showers of arrows. In front of the Pandaveyas and the Kurus, Karna spoke harsh and cruel words to Krishna649 in the assembly hall. “O Krishna! The Pandavas have been destroyed and have gone to eternal hell. O wide-hipped one! O one who is sweet in speech! Choose another one as a husband. Enter Dhritarashtra’s abode as a servant-maid. O one with long eyelashes! Your husbands are no longer there.” He does not know about dharma and is extremely evil-minded. Those were the words that he spoke then. O descendant of the Bharata lineage! Karna spoke those wicked and sinful words in your hearing. Those were the evil one’s words. Arrows decorated with gold, sharpened on stone and capable of taking away life, released by you, will pacify those words and other wicked deeds that the evil-souled one has done towards you. Let your arrows rob him of his life and pacify those and other things today. Let his limbs be touched by terrible arrows shot from Gandiva. Let the evil-souled Karna remember the words of Bhishma and Drona. Let gold-tufted iron arrows, capable of killing the enemy and with the radiance of lightning, be shot by you. Let them pierce his inner organs and drink his blood. O Arjuna! Let fierce, immensely forceful and sharp arrows be shot by you and le
t them penetrate his inner organs. Strike Karna with great force and convey him to Yama’s eternal abode. Let all the lords of the earth see Karna brought down from his chariot, oppressed by your arrows. Let them utter woes of lamentation and let them be miserable and distressed. Let all his well-wishers see Karna prostrate, deprived of his weapons. Let them be cheerless on seeing him shattered, drenched in his own blood and lying down on the ground. The standard of Adhiratha’s son is large and is marked with the sign of an elephant’s harness. Let it shudder and fall down on the ground, uprooted by you with a broad-headed arrow. When the gold-decorated chariot is shattered with hundreds of your arrows, with its warrior slain, let the terrified Shalya abandon it and run away. O Dhananjaya! Let Suyodhana see that Adhiratha’s son has been killed by you and give up all hope of the kingdom, or of remaining alive. The Panchalas are being slaughtered and driven away by Karna’s sharp arrows. O best of the Bharata lineage! But wishing to serve the Pandavas, the Panchalas, Droupadi’s sons, Dhrishtadyumna, Shikhandi, Dhrishtadyumna’s sons, Nakula’s son Shatanika, Nakula, Sahadeva, Durmukha, Janamejaya, Sudharma and Satyaki are succumbing to Karna. Karna is attacking the Panchalas in the great battle. O scorcher of enemies! Uttered by your relatives, a terrible roar can be heard. The Panchalas are not frightened. Nor are they unwilling to fight. Those maharathas, great archers, are not concerned about death in this battle. Single-handedly, Bhishma surrounded the Pandava soldiers with his torrents of arrows. But even then, the Panchalas clashed against him and did not retreat. The preceptor, Drona, was energetic and his blazing weapons were like the fire. He scorched all the archers in battle and was unassailable. Those scorchers of enemies650 always tried to cheerfully defeat that foe in the encounter. The Panchalas will never be terrified and retreat before Adhiratha’s son. The brave Panchalas spiritedly advanced against him and Karna is destroying them with his arrows, like insects before a fire. For the sake of their friends, those brave ones are advancing, ready to give up their lives. However, in the battle, Radheya is bringing destruction to hundreds of Panchalas. Karna obtained a weapon from Bhargava Rama, supreme among rishis in earlier times, and it has exhibited its extremely terrible and calamitous form. Its form is fierce and extremely terrible and it is scorching all the soldiers. Blazing in its energy, it has surrounded the large army.651 The arrows released from Karna’s bow are traversing in the field of battle. They are tormenting those on your side, like a storm of bees. O descendant of the Bharata lineage! Having encountered Karna’s irresistible weapon in the battle, the weak-spirited among the Panchalas are seen to run away in all the directions. O Partha! Bhima is firm in his anger and, surrounded by the Srinjayas on all sides, is fighting with Karna. However, he is oppressed by his sharp arrows. O descendant of the Bharata lineage! The Pandavas, Srinjayas and Panchalas, will be slain by Karna, like a body destroyed by a disease that has been neglected. Amongst all the warriors in Yudhishthira’s army, with your exception, I do not see a single one who can clash against Radheya and return safely home. O bull among the Bharata lineage! Slay him with your sharp arrows today. O Partha! Act according to the oath you had taken earlier and obtain fame. O foremost among warriors! You are the one who is capable of defeating Karna and the Kouravas in battle, and no other warrior. I am telling you this truthfully. Perform the great deed of killing maharatha Karna. O Partha! O supreme among men! Be successful in your objective and be happy.’” ’
Mahabharata: Volume 7 Page 27
