After much deliberation with their ministers, the commanders of the armies, weary from endless strife, sent messengers to one another with a single message: “Let the battle be ended.” Fatigue weighed heavily upon every warrior; their arrows and weapons, once wielded with vigor, now moved feebly in tired hands. All agreed in that moment to cease the fight. At the edge of the two armies, beneath towering banners and mighty chariots, a steadfast warrior emerged. Alone and unmoving, he stood firm as a mountain, and with great clarity, he began to wave a cloth in the air—a signal visible to all directions, shining like a long moonbeam across the sky. This was the call: “Let the battle cease.” Instantly, the great war drums, whose thunder had echoed across the plain, fell silent. Their sound faded away like the last ripples in a lotus pond stilled at the world’s dissolution. The relentless streams of arrows and weapons that had darkened the sky now dried up, just as the rivers dwindle in autumn. The ceaseless movement of warriors’ arms slowed, like trees trembling only faintly after an earthquake, or the waves of the ocean settling as the wind dies down. Gradually, both armies began to withdraw from the field, receding like floodwaters drawn back from the great ocean at the time of dissolution. The once-churning mass of warriors, agitated like the ocean of milk stirred by the Mandara mountain, slowly came to rest in the stillness of peace. In a short while, the battlefield stood utterly desolate and dreadful, as if it were the gaping maw of death itself—empty, like the ocean drained dry by the sage Agastya. The ground was heaped with corpses, and a great river of blood flowed through the carnage, resembling a haunted forest echoing with the cries of birds and jackals. The broad stream of blood roared, its waves mingling with the cries of the wounded, the desperate calls for help, and the frantic struggles of those trying to save others. Torrents of blood poured from the heaps of the dead and the half-dead. The sight was terrifying: corpses twitched atop the living, striking fear into all who beheld it. Fragments of clouds drifted above piles of elephants and fallen men, while shattered chariots created a vast forest of broken parasols. Through this grisly scene, a river of blood carried away chariots and elephants, crowded with arrows, spears, lances, maces, and swords. The ground was covered with fallen armor, the ends of canopies, and battered shields. Corpses lay hidden beneath heaps of banners, yak-tail fans, and torn strips of cloth. The wind rustled through thick quivers and broken bows, while the lords of the slain seemed to sleep on beds of arrows and clusters of shields. Crowns, necklaces, armlets, shining discs, bows, and arrows were strewn everywhere, alongside thick, long cords of entrails dragged away by jackals, wolves, and birds. The field echoed with the gnashing of teeth from the few survivors. Living men struggled, half-submerged in the muddy blood. Coins and heaps of shells were scattered about. Eyes protruded from hundreds of severed heads, and dreadful rivers of blood flowed, carrying masses of arms and logs. The cries of grieving relatives filled the air, mingling with the moans of the dead and half-dead, while the remains of weapons, chariots, horses, and canopies lay scattered. Headless trunks danced, their arm-stumps raised like clubs. Nostrils were clogged with lumps of blood, marrow, and fat. The field was strewn with half-swollen, dying horses, and noble men whose lives were cut short. War drums beat only in memory, their echoes replaced by the waves of blood. Dragged by dying horses and elephants, splashed by streams of blood, the scene was swept by gusts of wind thick with the cries and blood of perishing warriors. The air was heavy with the stench of torn flesh and fat, and the hiccuping voices of those whose mouths were stained with the curse of brief life. Bodies of elephants and horses were seized by the hands of the dead, while the ground was strewn with corpses of men and beasts, fallen without support. The wailing of bereft relatives and friends echoed throughout, mingling with the tumult of blood from the corpses, and women whose husbands had died lay with their throats cut by weapons. People searched among the corpses for their kin, agitated by the mingling of bodies dragged away by corpse-bearers and jackals. Faces, like lotuses tangled in hair and sinew, whirled and danced in the eddies of a great river of blood, whose waves surged high. At the end of their lives, many remembered sons, loved ones, mothers, gods, and wealth, crying “Alas! Alas!” and speaking of wounds that pierced their hearts. Limbs still tried to raise weapons, distracted by the agony of the half-dead. The foreign land resounded with the cries of the dying, filled with bodies and the fallen. Dying men, disturbed by mutual enmity, were swept along by fate in their chariots. Their teeth could no longer fight, their minds forgetful of home and cherished deities. Some died along the road, ashamed, while the brave resorted to flight—unafraid of the swirling blood, eager only to escape. Many were pierced by arrows in vital spots, writhing in pain and shouting. Bodies were bound together, tossed by fate like a swinging corpse. Banners, umbrellas, beautiful fans, and lotuses were all carried away; the horizon glowed crimson, radiant with blood-red lotuses. Chariot wheels spun like eddies in a blood-red ocean, adorned with clusters of flag foam and bubbles from beautiful fans. Overturned chariots looked like cities shattered by an earthquake, and the field resembled a forest flattened by a storm of disaster. It appeared as if the world had been burned at the end of an age, or as if the ocean had been drunk dry by the sages. The land was devastated by excessive rain, its people utterly destroyed. Circles of vultures, their crests bent low, crowded the field, joined by flocks of crows. The scene resembled the corpses of intoxicated elephants, and was strewn with spears and maces. All around, it spread like a grove of palm trees growing from rocky peaks, with trees on the riverbank raised up by the corpses, as if forming a new and dreadful forest. Thus, the battlefield, once alive with the tumult of war, now stood as a grim testament to the fate of all who had fought upon it.