CHAPTER XLIX.Description of Other Kinds of Weapons.
Thenblew 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. 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. This fearful squall blew away Vidúratha and his force, as a rapid current carries away the broken and rotten fragments of wood.
4. Then Vidúratha 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. 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. 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. The shouting (shitkára) of the city, the distant hum (dátkára) of the village, the howling (bhánkára) of forests, and the rustling (utkára) of the trees, ceased on all sides like the vain verbiology of men.
8. Sindhu saw burning rocks (rockets?) falling from above like leaves of trees, and flying about as the winged Mainákas or moving rocks of the sea or Sinde (sindhu).
9. 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. These falling bolts broke the stones with their pointedends, and hewed down the heads (tops) of the hills, like a hurricane scattering the fruits of trees on the ground.
11. Vidúratha then darted his Brahmá weapon to quell the thunderbolts, which jostling against one another, disappeared in their mutual conflict.
12. Sindhu then cast his demoniac weapons (Pisáchástras) as black as darkness, which fled as lines of horrid Pisácha demons on all sides.
13. 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. 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. 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. 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. The Pisáchas 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. 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. 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. 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. The line of the Pisáchas then advanced to frighten Vidúratha out of his wits, but he had the good sense to understand them as the mere Mumbo-jumbos of magic.
22. He knew the counter charm to fight out the Pisáchas from the field, and employed his charmed weapons against the Pisácha army of his enemy.
23. He darted in his ire the Rúpiká weapon, which gave comfort to his own army, and deluded the Pisácha force of his adversary.
24. These Rúpikás 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. They laid hold of the Pisáchas as men catch little boys, and joined with them in one body as their consorts. (i.e.The Rúpiká witches bewitching the demoniac Pisáchas, got the better of them).
30. 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. They stretched their long tongues from their horrid mouths, and licked away the blood exuding from the wounds of the dead bodies.
32. 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. 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. As Vidúratha employed his magic weapon against the magic of Sindhu, so he had recourse to others from a sense of his inferiority.
35. He darted his Vetála weapon, which made the dead bodies, whether with or without their heads, to rise up in a body in their ghastly shapes.
36. The joint forces of the Vetálas, Pisáchas and Rúpikás presented a dreadful appearance as that of the Kavandhas, and seemed as they were ready to destroy the earth.
37. The other monarch was not slow to show his magical skill, by hurling his Rákshasa weapon, which threatened to grasp and devour the three worlds.
38. 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. The ferocious body of the roaring Rákshasas, terrified both the gods and demigods (surásuras), by their loud martial music and war dance of their headless trunks (Kavandhas).
40. The giddy Vetálas, Yakshas and Kushmándas, 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. The hopping and jumping of the Kushmándas, 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.