Part 9: Advance to battle

Giving money to the bards like a wishing-tree; looking at their own soldiers that had come, like the Thousand-eyed One;^[1] each carrying an arrow, like king-geese lotus-fibres; making a profession of battle like lovers a profession of love; very eager, very strong, the two sons of Ṛṣabha set out, each in the midst of his own soldiers. Bharata and Bāhubali, in the midst of their armies, had the appearance of Mt. Meru in Jambūdvīpa. The ground between their two armies looked like the ground of Videha-kṣetra between Niṣadha and Nīla Mountains. As they advanced, the two armies formed into lines were like the east and west oceans at the end of the kalpa. The foot-soldiers who had become stragglers as they marched were restrained by the royal door-keepers, like rivers by dams. The soldiers advanced with uniform steps at the King’s command, like dancers in one concert to the time of the music. The two armies looked as if each had one body from all the soldiers advancing, each soldier keeping to his own place.

Splitting the earth with the iron-bound chariot-wheels, digging it up with the horses’ hooves like iron hoes; cutting it with the mules’ hooves like iron half-moons; shaking it with the infantry’s feet with adamantine heels; reducing it to bits with sharp hooves of buffaloes and oxen like arrows with horse-shoe heads; making it into dust with the feet of elephants like hammers; concealing the sky with dust like darkness; lighting it up with swords and missies like rays of the sun; injuring the back of the tortoise with their great weight; bending the turned-up tusk of the great boar; making relax the serpent-king’s firm expanded hood; crippling all the elephants of the quarters; making resound the universe with loud battle-cries, as it were; splitting it open, as it were, with vigorous hand-clappings; observing continuously their powerful opponents and hearing their names called by their well-known cognizances, as it were; challenging each other, the proud and valorous soldiers in the van of both armies met. While elephant-riders drew near to elephant-riders, like sea-monsters to sea-monsters; while cavalry drew near to cavalry, like waves to waves; while charioteers drew near to charioteers, like wind to wind; and infantry to infantry like horned animals, angrily making dart meet dart, sword meet sword, hammer meet hammer, staff meet staff, then the gods approached in the sky, god after god, terrified from fear of the shaking of the three worlds.