Mahabharata Karna parva Chapter 82:2

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Mahabharata Karna parva Chapter 82:2

Then Uttamauja and Janamejaya, and the enraged Yudhamanyu and Shikhandi, uniting with Prishata's son (Dhrishtadyumna) and uttering loud roars, pierced Karna with many shafts. Those five foremost of Pancala car-warriors rushed against Karna otherwise called Vaikartana, but they could not shake him off his car like the objects of the senses failing to shake off the person of purified soul from abstinence. Quickly cutting off their bows, standards, steeds, drivers and banners, with his shafts, Karna struck each of them with five arrows and then uttered a loud roar like a lion. People then became exceedingly cheerless, thinking that the very earth, with her mountains and trees, might split at the twang of Karna's bow while that hero, with shafts in hand touching the bow-string, was employed in shooting at his assailants and slaying his foes. Shooting his shafts with that large and extended bow of his that resembled the bow of Sakra himself, the son of Adhiratha looked resplendent like the sun, with his multitude of blazing rays, within his corona. The Suta's son then pierced Shikhandi with a dozen keen shafts, and Uttamauja with half a dozen, and Yudhamanyu with three, and then each of the other two, viz., Somaka (Janamejaya) and Prishata's son (Dhrishtadyumna) with three shafts. Vanquished in dreadful battle by the Suta's son, O sire, those five mighty car-warriors then stood inactive, gladdening their foes, even as the objects of the senses are vanquished by a person of purified soul. The five sons of Draupadi then, with other well-equipped cars, rescued those maternal uncles of theirs that were sinking in the Karna ocean, like persons rescuing from the depths of the ocean ship-wrecked merchants in the sea by means of other vessels. Then that bull among the Sinis, cutting off with his own keen shafts the innumerable arrows sped by Karna, and piercing Karna himself with many keen arrows made entirely of iron, pierced thy eldest son with eight shafts. Then Kripa, and the Bhoja chief (Kritavarma), and thy son, and Karna himself, assailed Satyaki in return with keen shafts. That foremost one, however, of Yadu's race fought with those four warriors like the chief of the Daityas fighting with the Regents of the (four) quarters. With his twanging bow stretched to its fullest limits, and from which shafts flowed incessantly, Satyaki became exceedingly irresistible like the meridian Sun in the autumnal sky. Those scorchers of foes then, viz., the mighty car-warriors among the Pancalas, once more riding on their cars and clad in mail and united together, protected that foremost one among the Sinis, like the Maruts protecting Sakra while engaged in afflicting his foes in battle. The battle fraught with the slaughter of men and steeds and elephants that then ensued between thy foes and the warriors of thy army, became so fierce that it resembled the encounter in days of old between the gods and the Asuras. Car-warriors and elephants and steeds and foot-soldiers, covered with showers of diverse weapons, began to move from one point to another. Struck by one another, they reeled or uttered wails of woe in affliction or fell down deprived of life.

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