Mahabharata 11.16.2

11.16.2

pativratā mahābhāgā samānavratacāriṇī |
ugreṇa tapasā yuktā satataṃ satyavādinī || 2 ||

Vaishampayana said, "Having said these words, Gandhari, though staying on that spot which was distant from the field of battle, beheld, with her spiritual eye, the slaughter of the Kurus. Devoted to her lord, that highly blessed lady had always practised high vows. Undergoing the severest penances, she was always truthful in her speech. In consequence of the gift of the boon by the great rishi Vyasa of sanctified deeds, she became possessed of spiritual knowledge and power. Piteous were the lamentations in which that dame then indulged. Endued with great intelligence, the Kuru dame saw, from a distance, but as if from a near point, that field of battle, terrible to behold and full of wonderful sights, of those foremost of fighters. Scattered all over with bones and hair, and covered with streams of blood, that field was strewn with thousands upon thousands of dead bodies on every side. Covered with the blood of elephants and horses and car-warriors and combatants of other kinds, it teemed with headless trunks and trunkless heads. And it resounded with the cries of elephants and steeds and men and women and abounded with jackals and cranes and ravens and kankas and crows. And it was the sporting ground of rakshasas subsisting on human flesh. And it swarmed with ospreys and vultures and resounded with the inauspicious howls of jackals.