[216] With those lamps that host became fiercely effulgent, like a blazing fire made doubly resplendent by the dazzling rays of the maker of day. The splendour of both the armies, over-spreading the earth, the welkin, and all the points of the compass, seemed to increase. With that light, thy army as also theirs became distinctly visible. Awakened by that light which reached the skies, the gods, the Gandharvas, the Yakshas, the Rishis and other crowned with (ascetic) success, and the Apsaras, all came there. Crowded then with gods and Gandharvas, and Yakshas, and Rishis crowned with (ascetic) success, and Apsaras, and the spirits of slain warriors about to enter the celestial regions, the field of battle looked like a second heaven. Teeming with cars and steeds and elephants, brilliantly illumined with lamps, with angry combatants and horses slain or wandering wildly, that vast force of arrayed warriors and steeds and elephants looked like the arrays of the celestials and the Asuras in days of old. The rush of darts formed the fierce winds; great cars, the cloud; the neigh and grunt of steeds and elephants, the roars; shafts, the showers; and the blood of warriors and animals, the flood, of that tempest like nocturnal encounter between those god-like men. In the midst of that battle, that foremost of Brahmanas, viz., the high-souled Aswatthaman, scorching the Pandavas, O ruler of men, resembled the midday sun at the end of the season of rains, scorching everything with his fierce ray.’”[217]Mbh 7.162.3c · Mahabharata · DRONA PARVA
Mbh 7.162.3c
Mahabharata · translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
Themes in this passage
WarNatureAngerCreationThe DivineLeadership
War in other traditions
The same theme, as Christianity, Taoism, Islam and Hellenism address it.
For Israel and the Philistines had put the battle in array, army against army.1 Samuel 17:21 · Bible · 1 Samuel
A master of the art of war has said, 'I do not dare to be the host (to commence the war); I prefer to be the guest (to act on the defensive). I do not dare to advance an inch; I prefer to retire a foot.' This is called marshalling the ranks where there are no ranks; baring the arms (to fight) where there are no arms to bare; grasping the weapon where there is no weapon to grasp; advancing against the enemy where there is no enemy.Tao Te Ching 69.1 · Tao Te Ching
Those who believe do battle for the cause of Allah; and those who disbelieve do battle for the cause of idols. So fight the minions of the devil. Lo! the devil's strategy is ever weak.Quran 4:76 · Quran · Women
He spoke, then rush’d amid the warrior crew, And sent his voice before him as he flew, Loud, as the shout encountering armies yield When twice ten thousand shake the labouring field; Such was the voice, and such the thundering sound Of him whose trident rends the solid ground. Each Argive bosom beats to meet the fight, And grisly war appears a pleasing sight.Iliad 14.15 · Iliad · 14
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