When Shikhandin rushed at Bhishma with great speed, Shalya blocked his way with a terrible, well-nigh unconquerable weapon. Seeing the rising astra, equal in force to the fire at the end of the age, the son of Drupada, equal in might to Mahendra, was not confounded, O king. The great bowman held his ground and began to check that weapon with arrows. Then Shikhandin took up another fierce astra — the Varuna weapon — to repel it. The gods standing in the sky and the kings of the earth watched as one weapon was rent apart by the other. Bhishma, however, the magnanimous hero, cut down in battle the splendid bow and the banner of King Yudhishthira, the son of Pandu of the Ajamidha line, and roared aloud.