Days four to six: Bhīma, Ghaṭotkaca, Bhagadatta and the arrays

Classical

The fourth day belonged to Bhīma. Bhīṣma led the Kauravas against Arjuna, while Abhimanyu fought five Kaurava heroes at once, and Dhṛṣṭadyumna fought Saṃyamani's son and Śalya. Then Bhīma attacked the Kaurava elephant division with his mace. Whirling the weapon, wet with the blood of elephants, he ranged across the field like Death himself, and the terrified elephants ran through their own side. Duryodhana ordered the whole army to kill Bhīma, but Bhīma, though pierced by arrows, fought his way to his chariot. When Duryodhana's arrow hit Bhīma in the chest and he fainted, the Pāṇḍava heroes rushed forward, and when he came to, he found fourteen of Duryodhana's brothers coming at him together.

Bhīma fell on them like Garuḍa on snakes. With a horseshoe-headed arrow he cut off the head of Senāpati. He killed Jalasandha, Suṣeṇa, Ugra, Vīrabāhu, Bhīma and Bhīmaratha and, finally, Sulocana. The rest of Dhṛtarāṣṭra's sons fled in terror. Bhīṣma called on his warriors to seize Bhīma, and the whole army rushed at him. Bhagadatta came forward on his elephant and covered Bhīma with arrows; Bhīma swooned over his flagstaff. Seeing his father down, the Rākṣasa Ghaṭotkaca vanished, then reappeared in terrible shape on a magical Airāvata, followed by three other huge illusory elephants of the quarters, and attacked Bhagadatta's elephant, which screamed.

Hearing the elephant's scream, Bhīṣma told Droṇa and Duryodhana that Bhagadatta was in danger from Hiḍimbā's son and that the Rākṣasa was too powerful to take on that evening. The Kaurava army was tired, their animals were spent, and they had been battered by the Pāṇḍavas. He ordered the withdrawal. The Pāṇḍavas shouted for joy. That night Duryodhana, mourning his brothers, asked Bhīṣma who Vāsudeva really was, since the Pāṇḍavas kept winning against the odds. Bhīṣma answered with a long account of Kṛṣṇa as the supreme being, and the hymn the sages sing to him, as the reason the Pāṇḍavas could not simply be beaten.

On the fifth day Bhīṣma formed his army into the Makara, the crocodile array, and the Pāṇḍavas answered with the Śyena, the hawk, Bhīma in the beak and Śikhaṇḍin and Dhṛṣṭadyumna as the eyes. Bhīma tore through the crocodile's mouth to reach Bhīṣma, and Arjuna held the old man off with a thousand arrows. In the afternoon Bhūriśravas, Somadatta's son, fought Sātyaki. Sātyaki's ten sons, seeing their father in danger, rode up and challenged Bhūriśravas to fight them together or one by one. He answered that they should come all at once. By afternoon he had cut down their bows and then their heads, and they fell like trees struck by lightning.

Sātyaki, seeing his sons dead, rushed at Bhūriśravas with a roar. They fought until both chariots were destroyed and then on foot with swords and shields, until Bhīma took Sātyaki up onto his own chariot and Duryodhana took Bhūriśravas on his. This killing would be paid for on the fourteenth day. Meanwhile Arjuna destroyed twenty-five thousand chariot-warriors sent at him by Duryodhana, and at dusk Bhīṣma called off the fighting. The sixth day opened with the Pāṇḍavas in the Makara array and the Kauravas in the crane, and ended with Bhīma again fighting Duryodhana alone, while twelve of the Pāṇḍava heroes including Abhimanyu came up behind him to protect him from the brothers who rushed him.

Told by Sañjaya → Dhṛtarāṣṭra

Who: Bhīma, Ghaṭotkaca, Bhagadatta, Bhūriśravas, Sātyaki, Duryodhana, Bhīṣma, Arjuna, Abhimanyu

Bound to

Days two and three: Bhīma among the Kaliṅgas, and Kṛṣṇa runs at Bhīṣma origin

Day eight: Ghaṭotkaca's rampage origin

Ghatotkacha: the shakti that saved Arjuna, and Gatotkaca in Java mirror

Hidimbi, Bhima and her Manali temple birth

Bhūriśravas: his arm cut off by Arjuna, his head by Sātyaki origin

Bhagadatta holds Arjuna for eight days mirror

Places: Kurukṣetra

Where this comes from

read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (read via archive.org copy of the sacred-texts text) Bhishma Parva, Sections LX–LXXX

See it on the tree · All stories

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