having earnestly reflected for some time on it, thought that his army had
been annihilated. Thinking that other creatures also, as unslayable as
Karna, would meet with a similar fate, king Dhritarashtra the son of
Ambika, scorched with grief and sighing like a snake, with limbs almost
palsied, long breaths, highly cheerless, and filled with melancholy,
began to lament, saying, 'Oh!' and 'Alas!' And the king said, 'O Sanjaya,
the heroic son of Adhiratha was endued with the prowess of the lion or
the elephant! His neck was as thick as that of a bull, and his eyes,
gait, and voice were like the bull's! Of limbs as hard as the
thunderbolt, that young man, like a bull never flying away from a bull,
never desisted from battle even if his foe happened to be the great Indra
himself! At the sound of his bow-string and palms and at the whizz of his
arrowy showers men and steeds and cars and elephants fled away from
battle. Relying upon that mighty-armed one, that slayer of large bands of
foes, that warrior of unfading glory, Duryodhana had provoked hostilities
with those mighty car-warriors, the sons of Pandu! How then could Karna,
that foremost of car-warriors, that tiger among men, that hero of
irresistible onset, be forcibly slain by Partha in battle? Relying on the
might of his own arms, he always disregarded Keshava of unfading glory,
and Dhananjaya, and the Vrishnis, and all other foes! Often did he use to
say unto the foolish, avaricious crestfallen, kingdom-coveting, and
afflicted Duryodhana even such words as these, "Alone, I shall, in
battle, throw down from their foremost of cars, those two invincible
warriors united together, the wielder of sarnga and the wielder of
gandiva!" He had subjugated many invincible and mighty foes--the
Gandharas, the Madrakas, the Matsyas, the Trigartas, the Tanganas, the
Khasas, the Pancalas, the Videhas, the Kulindas, the Kasi-kosalas, the
Suhmas, the Angas, the Nishadhas, the Pundras, the Kichakas, the Vatsas,
the Kalingas, the Taralas, the Asmakas, and the Rishikas. Subjugating all
these brave races, by means of his keen and whetted arrows equipped with