But Kotikakhya, speedily
surrounding Vrikodara with an array of mighty charioteers, interposed
between and separated the combatants. And Bhima, though assailed with
numberless spears and clubs and iron arrows hurled at him by the strong
arms of hostile heroes, did not waver for one moment. On the other hand,
he killed, with his mace, an elephant with its driver and fourteen
foot-soldiers fighting in the front of Jayadratha's car. And Arjuna
also, desirous of capturing the Sauvira king, slew five hundred brave
mountaineers fighting in the van of the Sindhu army. And in that
encounter, the king himself slew in the twinkling of an eye, a hundred
of the best warriors of the Sauviras. And Nakula too, sword in hand,
jumping out of his chariot, scattered in a moment, like a tiller sowing
seeds, the heads of the combatants fighting in the rear. And Sahadeva
from his chariot began to fell with his iron shafts, many warriors
fighting on elephants, like birds dropped from the boughs of a tree.
Then the king of Trigartas, bow in hand descending from his great
chariot, killed the four steeds of the king with his mace. But Kunti's
son, king Yudhishthira the just, seeing the foe approach so near, and
fighting on foot, pierced his breast with a crescent-shaped arrow. And
that hero, thus wounded in the breast began to vomit blood, and fell
down upon the ground besides Pritha's son, like an uprooted tree. And
king Yudhishthira the just, whose steeds had been slain taking this
opportunity, descended with Indrasena from his chariot and mounted that
of Sahadeva.
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