Arjuna and Krishna Slaughter Creatures and Burn Khandava

Arjuna and Krishna stationed their chariots on opposite sides of the Khandava forest. There was no gap in their line. The two chariots, the two charioteers, the two heroes — they moved as one. Then the slaughter began. Wherever they saw a creature trying to escape the burning woods, they pursued it. No hole could be seen in the swift power of their chariots; nothing could slip through. As Khandava blazed, thousands of beings leapt in every direction, uttering frightened yells. Some were burnt in one spot. Some were scorched. The eyes burst out for some. Some withered away. Some lost their minds and scattered. Some clung to their sons, others to their fathers and mothers. Out of affection, they were unable to let go and perished together. Others rose up in their thousands, their forms distorted by heat and terror, only to be whirled around by the inferno and flung back into the fire. Some rolled on the ground, their wings, eyes, and feet scorched, their bodies destroyed. All the waterbodies in the forest began to boil. In their thousands, the turtles and fishes were seen dead. In that destruction, the burning bodies seemed like flaming torches carried through the night. Those that managed to ascend upwards were cut to pieces by Arjuna’s arrows, and he laughingly flung them back into the flames. Uttering loud wails, their bodies pierced everywhere by arrows, they were swiftly flung back again into the fire from above. Pierced by arrows and in flames, the sounds made by the forest-dwellers rose like the roar of the ocean when it was churned. The huge flames of the delighted fire — the god Agni, consuming his feast — rose up into the sky. The conflagration created great consternation among the dwellers of heaven. They sought refuge with the thousand-eyed Purandara, Indra, the king of the gods. “O lord of the immortals!” they said. “Why is the fire burning all these people? Is it the case that the end of the worlds has arrived?” Hearing this, the slayer of Vritra himself looked down. Indra, the wielder of the vajra (thunderbolt), set out to save Khandava. He covered the sky with a great mass of clouds in many forms and began to pour down rain. The thousand-eyed one showered rain on the fire raging in Khandava from hundreds and thousands of clouds, in shafts as thick as chariot axles. But the heat of the fire dried up these showers before they could reach the ground. Not a single drop touched the flames. Then the slayer of Namuchi became very angry with the fire. He again started to rain down, in many torrents. And the flames fought with those showers, mingled with smoke and lightning. With the sound of that roar — fire against water, heat against storm — the forest became terrible to look at.