Checking with the weapons those of his enemy, and cutting off all the weapons of the latter, Drona's son, although he obtained the opportunity to do his enemy the crowning evil, still slew him not, from desire of battling with him for some time more. Meanwhile Karna rushed against the large elephant force of the Pandavas and began to rout and destroy it. Depriving car-warriors of their cars, he struck elephants and steeds and human warriors, O Bharata, with innumerable straight shafts. That mighty bowman, the son of Drona, although he had made Pandya, that slayer of foes and foremost of car-warriors, carless, yet he did not slay him from desire of fight. At that time a huge riderless elephant with large tusks, well-equipped with all utensils of war, treading with speed, endued with great might, quick to proceed against any enemy, struck with Ashvatthama's shafts, advanced towards the direction of Pandya with great impetuosity, roaring against a hostile compeer. Beholding that prince of elephants, looking like a cloven mountain summit, Pandya, who was well acquainted with the method of fighting from the neck of an elephant, quickly ascended that beast like a lion springing with a loud roar to the top of a mountain summit. Then that lord of the prince of mountains, striking the elephant with the hook, and inspired with rage, and with that cool care for which he was distinguished in hurling weapons with great force, quickly sped a lance, bright as Surya's rays, at the preceptor's son and uttered a loud shout. Repeatedly shouting in joy, "Thou art slain, Thou art slain!" Pandya (with that lance) crushed to pieces the diadem of Drona's son adorned with foremost of jewels and diamonds of the first water and the very best kind of gold and excellent cloth and strings of pearls. That diadem possessed of the splendour of the Sun, the Moon, the planets, or the fire, in consequence of the violence of the stroke, fell down, split into fragments, like a mountain summit riven by Indra's thunder, falling down on the Earth with great noise. At this, Ashvatthama blazed up with exceeding rage like a prince of snakes struck with the foot, and took up four and ten shafts capable of inflicting great pain upon foes and each resembling the Destroyer's rod. With five of those shafts he cut off the four feet and the trunk of his adversary's elephant, and with three the two arms and the head of the king, and with six he slew the six mighty car-warriors, endued with great effulgence, that followed king Pandya. Those long and well-rounded arms of the king, smeared with excellent sandal-paste, and adorned with gold and pearls and gems and diamonds falling upon the Earth, began to writhe like a couple of snakes slain by Garuda. That head also, graced with a face bright as the full Moon, having a prominent nose and a pair of large eyes, red as copper with rage, adorned with earrings, falling on the ground, looked resplendent like the Moon himself between two bright