In this dreadful slaughter of kings, great heroes fell together with their chariots and charioteers; elephants adorned with great banners and fine golden ornaments, tormented by the fall of nārācas, suddenly collapsed lifeless, their armor and bodies pierced by Kiritin, struck down by the Partha's powerful, swift-winged, sharp and honed arrows. Great banners with severed cords and shattered pins, hosts of foot soldiers, chariots, horses, and elephants — all these Dhananjaya struck down in battle, and they swiftly fell to the ground with limbs outstretched, their armor pierced through, in that great battle, O king. Then, by the sharp streams of Kiritin's arrows, a dreadful river arose upon the battlefield: its waters were the blood of wounded bodies, its foam the bodies of men. It rushed on mightily and wide, with a terrifying roar; its banks were choked with dead elephants and horses, its mire made of flesh, entrails, and marrow. Throngs of rākṣasas and spirits frequented it; instead of grass it was strewn with hair and skulls; it carried a thousand heaps of bodies, its waves crowded with shattered armor of every kind, its gravel the broken bones of men, horses, and elephants — terrible, holding within it an abyss of destruction. On every side they beheld this cruel river, resembling the great Vaitaraṇī, ringed by kaṅka-herons, vultures, and crows, by packs of flesh-eaters and hyenas, brought into being by the masses of Arjuna's arrows, flowing with fat, marrow-grease, and blood. Then the Cedis, Pañcālas, Karūṣas, and Matsyas, and all the Parthas together, roared aloud. Terrifying the army of the lords of hosts as a lion terrifies herds of beasts, Arjuna the wielder of Gāṇḍīva and Janārdana both cried out together in great joy. Then the Kurus, together with Bhishma, Drona, Duryodhana, and Bahlika, seeing the sun with its net of rays drawn in, and the night drawing near streaked with crimson bands of light, and beholding that unbearable, far-spread and terrible weapon of Indra, resembling the end of an age, made their retreat. Dhananjaya, having won fame and glory in the world, having conquered his enemies, his task accomplished, went by night to the camp together with the kings and his brothers. Then, at the onset of night, an even more terrible uproar arose among the Kurus. They said: "In battle Dhananjaya has destroyed ten thousand chariots; Arjuna has slain seven hundred elephants; the warriors of the east, all the Sauvīras, the Kṣudrakas and the Mālavas have been struck down. A great deed has been done by Dhananjaya, such as no one else could accomplish. Śrutāyus, king and lord of the Ambaṣṭhas, likewise Durmarṣaṇa and Citrasena, Drona, Kripa, the lord of Sindhu and Bahlika, Bhuriśravas, Śalya, and Śala, O king, together with Bhishma, have been overcome by the strength of the arms of Kiritin, the world's greatest chariot-warrior." So speaking, all your hosts, O Bhārata, went to their camps; and the army of the Kurus, all its warriors terrified by Kiritin, settled down for the night amid thousands of brightly blazing torches and shining lamps.