The old man’s end was, however, approaching, and he himself was well aware that he must fall by the hand of one Cikhandin, an ally of the Pandavas, since that prince in a previous existence (being then a woman, the Princess Amba (page 107), and subjected to great humiliations through Bhisma’s conduct) had undergone the most dreadful austerities for the express purpose of compassing his destruction, and, by the favour of Siva, would succeed in so doing.
Both parties with their armies and their allies marched to and encamped upon the famous battle-field. The Pandavas had seven and the Kauravas eleven akshauhinis of soldiers on the ground, making a total of eighteen akshauhinis in all. Now an akshauhini consisted of 21,870 chariots, 21,870 elephants, 109,350 foot-soldiers, and 65,610 cavalry; so that there were at Kurukshetra altogether 393,660 chariots with their fighting men, drivers, and horses; 393,660 elephants with their drivers and riders; 1,968,300 foot-soldiers, and 1,180,980 cavalry.[93] All this, of course, exclusive of camp followers—a mighty host in themselves; for we learn that there were crowds of artisans of all sorts, also bards, singers, panegyrists, venders, traders, and prostitutes; besides surgeons, physicians, spies, and spectators—all housed and provided for by the chiefs.
The commissariat arrangements were necessarily on a gigantic scale, and the arsenals in proportion to the mighty hosts assembled for mutual destruction on that famous battle-field. The leading heroes had their own peculiar weapons, often of celestial origin or possessed of magic properties, and their own inexhaustible quivers of wondrous arrows. For the rank and file there were heaps, as high as little hills, of bows and bow-strings, coats of mail and weapons of every kind; such as battle-axes, lances, poisoned darts, scimitars, nooses, and lassoes. There was also an ample supply of hot oil, treacle and sand to be thrown upon the enemy, and a store of inflammable materials, such as pulverized lac. And, lastly, there was a collection of earthen pots filled with deadly serpents, designed to cause confusion in the ranks amidst which they might be cast.
Before hostilities actually commenced Duryodhana sent a message to the camp of the Pandavas, challenging them to the fight, and scornfully reminded them of the many gross insults and humiliating indignities they had had to endure at his hands. He sent an especially insulting message and challenge to Krishna, making light of his prowess and former achievements. Vaunting and blood-thirsty rejoinders of a suitable kind were, of course, carried back from the insulted Pandavas to Duryodhana and the leaders of his armies.
Before joining issue it was arranged between the hostile parties that only “persons equally circumstanced should encounter each other, fighting fairly;” that car-warriors should engage car-warriors; those on elephants should fight those similarly mounted; that horsemen should encounter horsemen, and foot-soldiers foot-soldiers. It was agreed that no one should strike a disarmed, a panic-stricken, or retreating foeman; that no blow should be given without due notice, and that stragglers, charioteers, and chariot-horses, and drummers, with a host of others, were not to be assailed on any account. It is almost needless to say that in the succession of battles which took place at Kurukshetra these generous covenants were never observed. They seem, indeed, to have been only a formal and somewhat farcical preliminary, drawn up in accordance, possibly, with some ideal but inoperative code of Kshatriya honour.
While the hosts were assembling Vyasa presented himself before King Dhritarashtra and offered to restore the blind old king’s eyesight, but Dhritarashtra, unwilling to behold the bloodshed of his kinsfolk, declined the proffered boon, preferring that his charioteer, Sanjaya, should be enabled by the Rishi’s favour to survey any portion, however remote, of the field of battle, and relate all the events to him in the minutest and most circumstantial detail.
As preparations for the approaching contest were pushed on many strange portents occurred. A shower of flesh and blood fell from the skies. Unusual solar and lunar eclipses took place. Earthquakes shook both land and ocean, and rivers were turned into blood. Revolting acts of immorality were being commonly committed. Some women were giving birth to five daughters at a time, who, as soon as they were born, began to dance and sing. Other women, as well as lower animals, were bringing forth strange monsters; and, as Vyasa assured the blind king, “The images of gods and goddesses sometimes laughed and sometimes trembled, sometimes vomited blood and sometimes fell down.”[94]
After Vyasa had gone away the blind king remarked to Sanjaya that, since “many hundreds of millions of heroic men” had assembled at Kurukshetra, he desired to know all about the countries from which they had come, for there were many nationalities represented in the two armies. Sanjaya, having been endowed with superhuman perception by the Rishi Vyasa, gave his master, the king, a long lesson in geography, which it is rather disappointing to find so largely mythical as to be of little value, except perhaps as an indication of the very imperfect geographical knowledge possessed by the authors of the “Mahabharata.” Sanjaya’s inspired description of the countries of the world abounds in mountains of gold and gems; it embraces oceans of butter, milk, curds and wine; and dwells upon such objects in nature as trees yielding fruits which measure 2,500 cubits in circumference. While revelling in these glories of sea and land, Sanjaya’s descriptive narrative does not quite overlook the causes of natural phenomena; for he, no less than the modern scientist, has his own theory of the winds. It is, we learn from him, all due to “four princely elephants adored by all.” These magnificent beasts, whose enormous proportions Sanjaya does not venture to calculate, seize with their lithe trunks the wandering winds and then breathe them over the earth. “The winds thus let out by those respiring elephants, come over the earth and, in consequence thereof, creatures draw breath and live.”
In the wonderful lands pictured by the inspired geographer, the men were necessarily long-lived. Some races, indeed, were exempt from death, and there were others whose lives extended to many thousands of years. In respect to their own land of Bharatavarsha, where the great battle was about to be fought, Sanjaya makes some statements which seem worthy of note. He says, for example, after naming certain mountain ranges, that there are many “smaller mountains inhabited by barbarous tribes;” and he adds that “Aryas and Mlecchas, and many races mixed of the two elements, drink the waters of the following rivers, viz., magnificent Ganga, Sindhu, and Saraswati; of Godavari and Narmuda ... and that large river called Yamuna,” etc.
At length the day of real battle arrived. The chiefs on both sides made their final preparations. With tall and handsome standards, borne conspicuously aloft,[95] drums beating and conchs sounding, they took up their positions on the great plain. Karna alone held aloof from the contest, resolved to take no part in it while Bhisma lived, for he was smarting under some unbearable insults received from the aged leader of the Kauravas.