Jalapradanika Parva — .-Contd. Gandhari's lamentation

Gandhari said See the son of Somadatta, who was killed by Yuyudhana, is being cut by a large number of birds.

Burning with sorrow at the death of his son, Somadatta, O Janarddana, seems to blame the great bowman Yuyudhana.

There the mother of Bhurishravas that faultless lady, beside herself with grief, is addressing her lord Somadatta, saying,-By good luck, O king, you do not witness this terrible destruction of the Bharatas, this extermination of the Kurus, this sight resembling the spectacles occurring at the end of a cycle.

By good luck, you do not see your heroic, son, who bore the device of the sacrificial stake on his banner and who celebrated numberless sacrifices with profuse presents to all, killed on the field of battle.

By good luck, you do not hear those dreadful wails of woe uttered amidst this destruction by your daughter-in-law like the screams of a fight of cranes of the sea.

Your daughters-in-law, deprived of both husbands and sons, are running about, each clad in a single piece of cloth and each with her clad in a single piece of cloth and each with her black hairs all disheveled.

By good luck, you do not see to-day your son, that foremost of men, deprived of one of his arms, killed by Arjuna, and now being devoured by beasts of prey.

By good luck, you do not see to-day your son Shala killed in battle, and Bhurishravas deprived of life, and your widowed daughterin-law plunged into grief.

By good luck, you do not see the golden umbrella of that illustrious hero who had the sacrificial stake as his emblem on his banner, torn and broken on the terrace of his car.

There the black-eyed wives of Bhurishravas are bewailing piteously surrounding their lord killed by Satyaki.

Stricken with sorrow on account of the slaughter of their husband, those ladies bewailing piteously, are falling down on the Earth with their faces toward the ground, and slowly approaching you, O Keshava!

Alas, why did Arjuna of pure deeds commit such a heinous crime, since he cut off the arm of a heedless warrior who was brave and used to perform sacrifices.

Alas, Satyaki perpetrated a still more sinful act, for he killed a person of restrained soul while sitting in the observance of the praya VOW.

Alas, O righteous one, you are lying on the ground, killed unfairly by two foes. Thus, O Madhava, those wives of Bhurishravas are crying aloud in sorrow.

There, those wives of that warrior, all having slender waists, are placing upon their laps the cut off arm of their husband and weeping bitterly. Here is that arm which used to attack the girdles, grind the deep bosoms and touch the navel, the thighs, and the hips, of fair ladies, and loosen the ties of the drawers worn by them.

Here is that arm which killed enemies and dispelled the fears of friends, which gave thousands of kine and rotted out the Kshatriyas in battle.

In the presence of Vasudeva himself, Arjuna of pure deeds cut it off while you were heedless and engaged with another in battle.

How will you, O Janarddana, describe this great fear of Arjuna while speaking of it in the midst of assemblies. What also will the diadem-decked Arjuna himself say of it?-Censuring you in this way, that best of ladies nas stopped at last. The co-wives of that lady are lamenting piteously with her as if she wee their daughter-in-law.

There the powerful Shakuni, the king of the Gandharas, having irresistible prowess, has been killed by Sahadeva, the maternal uncle by the sister's son.

Formerly, he used to be fanned with a two gold-handed fans. Alas, now, his boy lunging on the ground is being fanned by birds with their wings.

He used to assume hundreds and thousands of forms. All the illusions, however, of that man possessed of great illusory powers, have been burnt by the energy of the son of Pandu.

Highly wily, he had defeated Yudhishthira in the assembly by his power of deception and won from him his vast kingdom. The son of Pandu, however, has now conquered Shakuni's life-breaths.

Look, O Krishna, a number of birds is not sitting around Shakuni. An expert in dice, alas, he had also mastered the means for the destruction of my sons.

This fire of hostility with the Pandavas had been lighted by Shakuni, for the destruction of my children as also of himself and his followers ar relatives.

Like those gained by my sons, O powerful one, by the use of arms, this man too, however wicked-souled, has obtained many blissful regions by the use of weapons.

My fear, O destroyer of Madhu, is that wily man may not create dissensions even there between my children all of whom are simple and confiding.