8. Being then followed by his fourfold forces (composed of horse, elephants, war-cars and foot soldiers); he then rushed out of the confines of his city of palaces, and marched to the open fields lying out of the town. 9. He saw the thinness of his own army, and the strong armament of his enemies all around; and heard their loud clamour all about, like the wild roar of the surrounding sea. 10. Flights of arrows flying thickly through the air, appeared as sharks floating in the sea; and the bodies of elephants, moving in the wide battle field, seemed as the huge waves of the ocean. 11. The moving battalions wheeling circular bodies, seemed as the whirling eddies in the sea; and the coursing chariots with their waving flags, appeared as the sailing ships with their unfurled sails. 12. The uplifted umbrellas were as the foams of the sea, and the neighing of horses, likened the frothing of whales. The glaring of shining weapons, appeared as the flaring of falling rain under the sunshine. 13. The moving elephants and sweeping horses, seemed as the huge surges and swelling waves of the sea; and the dark Dravidian barbarians gabbled, like the gurgling bubbles of sea waters. 14. The big elephants with their towering and lowering bodies, seemed as they were mounting or dismounting from the heights of mountains, and breaking their hollow caves, howling with the rustling winds. 15. The battle field looked like the vast expanse of water, in which the slain horses and elephants seemed to be swimming as fragments of floating rocks, and where the moving legions, appeared as the rolling waves of the sea. 16. The field presented the dismal appearance of an untimely dissolution; appeared as an ocean of blood, stretching to the borders of the visible horizon. 17. The fragments of the shining weapons, showed themselves as the sparkling gems in the womb of the sea; and the movement of forces, resembled the casting of ballast stones into it. 18. The falling weapons, were as showers of gems and snow from above; and presented the appearance of evening clouds in some place, and of fleecy vapours in another. 19. Beholding the ocean like the battalion of the enemy, the king thought of swallowing it up, as the sage Agastya had sucked in the ocean; and with this intent, he remembered his airy instrument, which he thought to employ on this occasion; (and which would disperse the cloud of the hostile force like the wind). 20. He got the airy instrument, and aimed it at all sides; as when the god Siva had set the arrow to his bow on Mount Meru, to slay the demon Tripura. (This passage shows the slaughter of Tripura, when the Indo-Aryans had their habitation on Meru or the polar mountains). 21. He bowed to his god Agni--Ignis, and let fly his mighty missile with all his might; in order to repel the raging fire, and preserve his own forces from destruction.