Chapter XLIX - Description of daivastras or supernatural weapons

1. [Sanskrit available]
Then blew the icy winds of winter, blasting the beauty of the foliage of forest trees, and shaking and breaking the beautiful arbors, and covering them with gusts of dust.

2. [Sanskrit available]
Then rose the gale whirling the trees like birds flying in the air, dashing and smashing the soldiers on the ground, and hurling and breaking the edifices to dust.

3. [Sanskrit available]
This fearful squall blew away Viduratha and his force, as a rapid current carries away the broken and rotten fragments of wood.

4. [Sanskrit available]
Then Viduratha who was skilled in ballistics hurled his huge and heavy arrows, which stretched themselves to the sky, and withstood the force of the winds and rain.

5. [Sanskrit available]
Opposed by these rock-like barriers, the airy weapons were at a stand still, as the animal spirits are checked by the firm stoicity of the soul.

6. [Sanskrit available]
The trees which had been blown up by the winds and floating in the breezy air, now came down and fell upon the dead bodies, like flocks of crows upon putrid carcasses.

7. [Sanskrit available]
The shouting (shitkara) of the city, the distant hum (datkara) of the village, the howling (bhankara) of forests, and the rustling (utkara) of the trees, ceased on all sides like the vain verbiology of men.

8. [Sanskrit available]
Sindhu saw burning rocks (rockets?) falling from above like leaves of trees, and flying about as the winged Mainakas or moving rocks of the sea or Sinde (sindhu).

9. [Sanskrit available]
He then hurled his thundering weapons, falling as flaming thunderbolts from heaven, which burnt the rocks away as the flaming fire destroys the darkness.

10. [Sanskrit available]
These falling bolts broke the stones with their pointed ends, and hewed down the heads (tops) of the hills, like a hurricane scattering the fruits of trees on the ground.

11. [Sanskrit available]
Viduratha then darted his Brahma weapon to quell the thunderbolts, which jostling against one another, disappeared in their mutual conflict.

12. [Sanskrit available]
Sindhu then cast his demoniac weapons (Pisachastras) as black as darkness, which fled as lines of horrid Pisacha demons on all sides.

13. [Sanskrit available]
They filled the firmament with the darkness of their bodies, and made the daylight turn to the shade of night, as if it were for fear of them.

14. [Sanskrit available]
They were as stalwart in their figures as huge columns of smoke, and as dark in their complexion as the blackest pitch, and tangible by the hand.

15. [Sanskrit available]
They were as lean skeletons with erect hairs on their heads and bearded faces, with looks as pale as those of beggars, and bodies as black as those of the aerial and nocturnal fiends.

16. [Sanskrit available]
They were terrific and like idiots in their looks, and moved about with bones and skulls in their hands. They were as meagre as churls, but more cruel than either the sword or thunderbolt.

17. [Sanskrit available]
The Pisachas lurk about the woods, bogs and highways, and pry into empty and open door houses. They hunt about as ghosts in their dark forms, and fly away as fast as the fleeting lightning.

18. [Sanskrit available]
They ran and attacked with fury the remaining forces of the enemy, that stood weaponless in the field, with their broken and sorrowful hearts.

19. [Sanskrit available]
Frightened to death they stood motionless, and dropped down their arms and armours, and stood petrified as if they were demon-struck, with staring eyes, open mouths, and unmoving hands and feet.

20. [Sanskrit available]
They let fall both their lower and upper garments, loosened their bowels and slakened their bodies through fear, and kept shaking as fixed trees by the winds.

21. [Sanskrit available]
The line of the Pisachas then advanced to frighten Viduratha out of his wits, but he had the good sense to understand them as the mere Mumbo-jumbos of magic.

22. [Sanskrit available]
He knew the counter charm to fight out the Pisachas from the field, and employed his charmed weapons against the Pisacha army of his enemy.

23. [Sanskrit available]
He darted in his ire the Rupika weapon, which gave comfort to his own army, and deluded the Pisacha force of his adversary.

24. [Sanskrit available]
These Rupikas flew in the air with erect hairs on their heads; their terrific eyes were sunk in their sockets, and their waists and breasts moved as trees with bunches of fruit.

25. [Sanskrit available]
They had past their youth and become old; and their bodies were bulky and worn out with age; they had deformed backs and hips, and protuberant navels and naves.

26. [Sanskrit available]
They had dark dusky bodies, and held human skulls in their hands all besmeared with blood. They had bits of half devoured flesh in their mouths, and pouring out fresh blood from their sides.

27. [Sanskrit available]
They had a variety of gestures, motions and contortions of their bodies, which were as hard as stone, with wry faces, crooked backs and twisted legs and limbs.

28. [Sanskrit available]
Some had their faces like those of dogs, crows, and owls, with broad mouths and flat cheek-bones and bellies, and held human skulls and entrails in their hands.

29. [Sanskrit available]
They laid hold of the Pisachas as men catch little boys, and joined with them in one body as their consorts. (i. e. the Rupika witches bewitching the demoniac Pisachas, got the better of them).

30. [Sanskrit available]
They joined together in dancing and singing with outstretched arms and mouths and eyes, now joining hand in hand and now pursuing one another in their merry sport.

31. [Sanskrit available]
They stretched their long tongues from their horrid mouths, and licked away the blood exuding from the wounds of the dead bodies.

32. [Sanskrit available]
They plunged in the pool of blood with as much delight, as if they dived in a pond of ghee, and scrabbled in the bloody puddle with outstretched arms and feet, and uplifted ears and nose.

33. [Sanskrit available]
They rolled and jostled with one another in the puddle of carrion and blood, and made it swell like the milky ocean when churned by the Mandara mountain.

34. [Sanskrit available]
As Viduratha employed his magic weapon against the magic of Sindhu, so he had recourse to others from a sense of his inferiority.

35. [Sanskrit available]
He darted his Vetala weapon, which made the dead bodies, whether with or without their heads, to rise up in a body in their ghastly shapes.

36. [Sanskrit available]
The joint forces of the Vetalas, Pisachas and Rupikas presented a dreadful appearance as that of the Kavandhas, and seemed as they were ready to destroy the earth.

37. [Sanskrit available]
The other monarch was not slow to show his magical skill, by hurling his Rakshasa weapon, which threatened to grasp and devour the three worlds.

38. [Sanskrit available]
These with their gigantic bodies rose as high as mountains, and seemed as hellish fiends appearing from the infernal regions in their ghostly forms.

39. [Sanskrit available]
The ferocious body of the roaring Rakshasas, terrified both the gods and demigods (surasuras), by their loud martial music and war dance of their headless trunks (Kavandhas).

40. [Sanskrit available]
The giddy Vetalas, Yakshas and Kushmandas, devoured the fat and flesh of dead bodies as their toast, and drank the gory blood as their lurid wines in the coarse of their war dance.

41. [Sanskrit available]
The hopping and jumping of the Kushmandas, in their war dance in streams of blood, scattered its crimson particles in the air, which assembled in the form of a bridge of red evening clouds over the sparkling sea.