This canto is entirely taken up with the struggle between the two armies. A few stanzas are given here.
<pre> As pairs of champions stood forth
To test each other's fighting worth,
The bards who knew the family fame
Proclaimed aloud each mighty name.
<pre> As ruthless weapons cut their way
Through quilted armour in the fray,
White tufts of cotton flew on high
Like hoary hairs upon the sky.
<pre> Blood-dripping swords reflected bright
The sunbeams in that awful fight;
Fire-darting like the lightning-flash,
They showed how mighty heroes clash.
<pre> The archers' arrows flew so fast,
As through a hostile breast they passed,
That they were buried in the ground,
No stain of blood upon them found.
<pre> The swords that sheaths no longer clasped,
That hands of heroes firmly grasped,
Flashed out in glory through the fight,
As if they laughed in mad delight.
<pre> And many a warrior's eager lance
Shone radiant in the eerie dance,
A curling, lapping tongue of death
To lick away the soldier's breath.
<pre> Some, panting with a bloody thirst,
Fought toward the victim chosen first,
But had a reeking path to hew
Before they had him full in view.
<pre> Great elephants, their drivers gone
And pierced with arrows, struggled on,
But sank at every step in mud
Made liquid by the streams of blood.
<pre> The warriors falling in the fray,
Whose heads the sword had lopped away,
Were able still to fetch a blow
That slew the loud-exulting foe.
<pre> The footmen thrown to Paradise
By elephants of monstrous size,
Were seized upon by nymphs above,
Exchanging battle-scenes for love.
<pre> The lancer, charging at his foe,
Would pierce him through and bring him low,
And would not heed the hostile dart
That found a lodgment in his heart.
<pre> The war-horse, though unguided, stopped
The moment that his rider dropped,
And wept above the lifeless head,
Still faithful to his master dead.
<pre> Two lancers fell with mortal wound
And still they struggled on the ground;
With bristling hair, with brandished knife,
Each strove to end the other's life.
<pre> Two slew each other in the fight;
To Paradise they took their flight;
There with a nymph they fell in love,
And still they fought in heaven above.
<pre> Two souls there were that reached the sky;
From heights of heaven they could spy
Two writhing corpses on the plain,
And knew their headless forms again.</pre>
As the struggle comes to no decisive issue, Taraka seeks out the chief gods, and charges upon them.