The Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana of Valmiki, Vol. 1 (of 4)Valmiki
Religion
The Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana of Valmiki, Vol. 1 (of 4)
Valmiki
Hinduism -- Doctrines -- Early works to 1800; Religious life -- Hinduism -- Early works to 1800
41. Hear the tremendous blows of weapons, like the blowing of an
all destroying tornado, throwing down the elephants like craigs of
mountains, with their long stretching tusks lying like water falls on
the ground.
42. Lo! there the drivers of war chariots are stopped in their course,
and striving to make their way through the puddles of blood, in which
the wheels and horses of the car, are huddled together as in a bog of
quagmire.
43. The jingling of arms and armours, and the jangling of swords and
steel, resound, as the tinkling of the lute at the dancing of the dire
and dreaded dame of death.
44. See the skirts of the sky reddened by the roseate particles, borne
by the winds from the streams of blood, issuing out of the wounds in
the bodies of men, horses and elephants lying dead in the field.
45. Look at the array of arrows formed in the air as a wreath of
blossoms, and falling as the rays of lightnings from the dark black
clouds of weapons hanging on high.
46. Lo! the surface of the earth filled with blood-red weapons,
appearing as faggots of fire strewn over the ground in an universal
conflagration.
47. The multitudes of commingled weapons, clashing with and breaking
one another into pieces, are falling down in showers, like the
innumerable rays of the sun.
48. The fighting of one man among the motionless many, is like the
magic play of a magician[19] where the conjurer acts his parts amidst
the bewitched beholders, Lo! there the indifferent spectators viewing
the warfare as a dream (by their _prajna_ or inward vision of the mind).
49. The field of battle, where all other sounds are hushed under the
clashing of arms, resembles the stage of the martial god Bhairava,
chanting his pitiless war song in jarring cacophony.
50. The battlefield is turned to a sea of blood, filled with the sands
of pounded weapons, and rolling with the waves of broken discuses.
51. All the quarters under the regents of the sky, are filled with
martial music loudly resounding on all sides; and the rebellowing hills
seem to challenge one another, in their aerial flight and fighting (as
in contest of the gods and titans of old).
52. Alas for shame! says one, that these arrows flung with such force
from the bow strings, and flying with such loud hissing, and glittering
as red hot lightnings in the air, are foiled in their aim of piercing
the impenetrable armours, and driven back by them to hit at the stony
hills.
53. Hear me friend, that art tired with the sight, that it is time for
us to depart from this place, ere we are pierced in our bodies by these
sharp arrows flashing as fire, and before the day runs its course of
the fourth watch (evening).
CHAPTER XXXV.
DESCRIPTION OF THE BATTLEFIELD.[20]
Vasishtha said:—Then the waves of horse troops mounting to the sky,
made the battlefield appear as a raging sea.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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