In the midst of battle, an astonishing sight unfolded. The mighty Sindhu unleashed an ocean of arrows, their force and fury overwhelming, yet Viduratha countered with the fire of his own power. Like the river Jahnu, famed for swallowing the Mandakini with its unapproachable heat, so too did Sindhu’s fiery energy consume that deluge of arrows. Undaunted, Viduratha pierced through the dense mass of shafts with a relentless shower of his own, driving Sindhu’s attack downward and hurling it into the vastness of the sky. The arrows vanished so completely that their path could no longer be traced, just as the movement of a lamp’s flame is lost when the lamp is extinguished. Viduratha pressed on, slicing through the torrent of arrows and spreading his own thick cloud of shafts across the heavens, the sky now filled not only with arrows but also with the fallen bodies of warriors. Swiftly, Sindhu scattered this assault with his finest arrows, as a furious doomsday wind scatters a raincloud. Thus, the two kings, Viduratha and Sindhu, exchanged ceaseless showers of arrows, each rendering the other’s attacks fruitless in a dazzling display of martial prowess. Then, out of friendship for the Gandharvas, Sindhu invoked the weapon of stupefaction. Instantly, all beings except Viduratha fell under its spell of delusion. Warriors laid aside their weapons and garments, their voices silenced, faces cast down; they appeared as lifeless as painted figures on a canvas. As long as Viduratha’s chariot slowed under the weapon’s influence, Viduratha himself took up the weapon of awakening. With its power, the people were roused from their stupor, blossoming like lotuses at dawn. In Viduratha, a mighty surge of energy arose—like an ocean rising in wrath against a demon. Taking up the dreadful serpent-weapon, Viduratha unleashed bands of serpents that bound his foes. The sky filled with snakes as massive as mountains, while the earth writhed with their forms, resembling a lake tangled with lotus stalks. The mountains were soon draped in black, as if covered with thick blankets of serpents. Everywhere, the land and its features were hidden beneath the writhing mass, leaving the earth helpless beneath their coils. Hot winds began to blow, carrying embers and ashes, their heat as fierce as fiery dust-storms, heralding the venom’s force. In response, Viduratha, master of mighty weapons, invoked the Suparna-weapon. Suddenly, Garudas—golden and mountain-like—arose and filled the sky. All directions gleamed with their radiance, and fierce winds, born from the tumult of these winged mountain-birds, swept across the world. The serpents, breathing and hissing, swayed their hoods, filling the clouds with a great, rumbling roar. But the mighty Garudas descended, devouring the host of serpents covering the earth, just as Agastya once drank up the ocean. The serpents hissed and rustled as they were seized, and when the onslaught ended, the earth shone forth—vast, seamless, and bright, like a great expanse of silver unbroken by water. Then, as suddenly as they had appeared, the host of Garudas vanished, becoming invisible, like lamps scattered by the wind or clouds dissolving in autumn. The mountain ranges, their slopes still bearing the imprint of the Garudas’ wings, appeared dreamlike—like a city conjured in the imagination, filled to overflowing. Now Sindhu, not to be outdone, released the darkness-weapon. Instantly, a dense, blinding gloom spread forth, growing thick and impenetrable, like the belly of a black thundercloud. The darkness poured through the mountain gaps, joining into a single vast ocean; the mountains seemed like fish swimming in its depths, and the stars shone faintly like scattered jewels. The darkness deepened, becoming an ocean of inky mud, a mass of lampblack that could not be dispelled, even by the passing of ages. All beings felt as if they had fallen into a dark pit; all activity ceased, as though the world had reached the end of an age. But Viduratha, supreme among wielders of weapons, empowered by sacred mantras, invoked the solar missile within the cosmic egg. As the sun Agastya rises and with his rays drinks up the ocean, so the darkness was dispelled, pure as the autumn sky. Freed from the garment of night, the directions shone forth, radiant and beautiful, like lovely women appearing before their king. The forests reappeared, as clear and visible as the minds of the virtuous freed from the darkness of greed. Enraged, the ocean unleashed the terrifying demon-missile, composed of arrows summoned by mantra. From every direction, fierce forest-demons arose in wrath, like vast oceans churned by the roar of the underworld elephant. Their tawny, matted hair smoked as they moved, crackling and snapping, their fiery tongues licking the air as if fed with moist fuel. They wheeled through the sky, making dreadful, drum-like sounds, their forms vast as blazing meteors trailing plumes of smoke. Their bodies, with lotus-like faces seized by sprouting fangs, rose up like flaming, tangled locks of hair bursting from every pore. Devouring, rushing, and roaring with menace, they resembled storm clouds set ablaze by lightning from their own tangled hair. At that moment, Viduratha, the playful lord, released the Narayana weapon, which wards off evil spirits. As he did so, the demon hosts vanished as swiftly as darkness flees before the sunrise. The demonic army was swept away, and the three worlds shone clear, like the sky after autumn clouds have departed. Yet again, Sindhu retaliated, releasing the fiery weapon. It blazed across the sky, burning the quarters of the heavens as if the fire of dissolution itself had been unleashed. All directions became veiled with masses of smoke and cloud, as though the sky and the netherworld were filled with a thick, impenetrable darkness.