After the fall of Bhisma the command of the army was given to Drona, and the contest was carried on with unabated vigour, resulting more than once in the defeat of the Pandavas. The record of Drona’s command abounds in numerous descriptions of single combats, in which, besides the more prominent leaders, many another chief fought with marvellous skill and daring. As was inevitable, many heroic warriors were killed--such as Abhimanyu, the son of Arjuna, and the mighty Rakshasa Ghatotkacha, Bhima’s son, who in his fall crushed to death a whole akshauhini of Dhritarashtra’s troops. In one of the battles Jayadartha, King of the Sindhus performed, single-handed, deeds of matchless daring; for he alone held in check all the sons of Pandu. Arjuna, enraged at Jayadartha’s success, and attributing Abhimanyu’s death to him, vowed, in the presence of all men, either to slay the victorious chief before the day was done or to lay down his own life on the funeral pyre. But the Rajah of Sindhu was so well supported by his friends that there appeared every likelihood that he would survive the day. Rather than this should occur and Arjuna fall by his own hand, Krishna obscured the sun by his _Yoga_ power. The unsuspecting Jayadartha and his friends, believing that the sun had set and night come on, were filled with joy at the prospect of Arjuna’s doom, and were carelessly looking up towards the darkened sky, when Arjuna, at Krishna’s suggestion, taking advantage of their being off their guard, renewed the battle with redoubled vigour. He eventually struck off Jayadartha’s head with one of his wonderful weapons and sped it along through the air with his arrows till it fell into the lap of Vriddhakshatra, the father of Jayadartha, whence it rolled on to the ground. It appears that when Jayadartha was born, a voice, proceeding from some unseen being, predicted that he would meet his death by having his head cut off. His pious father thereupon prophesied that the man who should cause his son’s head to fall to the _earth_, would have his own cracked into a hundred pieces. For his own protection, therefore, Arjuna, at Krishna’s suggestion, had hurled the dead man’s head into Vriddhakshatra’s lap and, as it fell to the earth, lo! the old man’s head cracked into a hundred fragments in grim fulfilment of his own prophecy. Other marvellous events are not wanting in the narrative; as when, in the thick of battle, Arjuna, piercing the earth with one of his arrows, creates in a moment a lake of water for his thirsty horses to drink from--a lake inhabited by swarms of aquatic birds and covered with lotuses--or when Açwathaman employs the irresistible _Narayana_ weapon, and the Pandavas, on their part, _pacify_ and _propitiate_ this destructive missile by laying down their arms before it.