each other at times, pretending to aim at particular limbs while the
blows descended upon other parts of the body. It was thus that those
heroes fought with each other. The citizens consisting of thousands,
of Brahmanas, Kshatriyas and Vaisyas and Sudras, and even women and
the aged, O tiger among men, came out and gathered there to behold the
fight. And the crowd became so great that it was one solid mass of
humanity with no space between body and body. The sound the wrestlers
made by the slapping of their arms, the seizing of each other's necks
for bringing each other down, and the grasping of each other's legs
for dashing each other to the ground, became so loud that it resembled
the roar of thunder or of falling cliffs. Both of them were foremost
of mighty men, and both took great delight in such encounter. Desirous
of vanquishing the other, each was on the alert for taking advantage
of the slightest lapse of the other. And, O monarch, the mighty Bhima
and Jarasandha fought terribly on in those lists, driving the crowd at
times by the motions of their hands like Vritra and Vasava of old.
Thus two heroes, dragging each other forward and pressing each other
backward and with sudden jerks throwing each other face downward and
sideways, mangled each other dreadfully. And at times they struck each
other with their knee-joints. And addressing each other loudly in
stinging speeches, they struck each other with clenched fists, the
blows descending like a mass of stone upon each other. With broad
shoulders and long arms and both well-skilled in wrestling encounters,
they struck each other with those long arms of theirs that were like
maces of iron. That encounter of the heroes commenced on the first
(lunar) day of the month of Kartic (October) and the illustrious
heroes fought on without intermission and food, day and night, till
the thirteenth lunar day. It was on the night of the fourteenth of the
lunar fortnight that the monarch of Magadha desisted from fatigue. And
O king, Janardana beholding the monarch tired, addressed Bhima of