Tribes in Ancient India c5.74

c5.74

The Kāmbojas appear to have been consistently in the thickest of the fight.⁴ Their king Sudakṣiṇa was eventually killed in a duel with Arjuna. The verses which describe him as he lay slain on the battle-field are worth quoting for their poetic imagery: ‘Like a charming Karṇikara tree,—which in the spring grows gracefully on the top of a hill, with beautiful branches,—lying in the grove when uprooted by the tempest, the prince of the Kāmbojas, accustomed to sleep on the most precious bed, lay lifeless on the bare ground. Adorned with precious ornaments, graceful, possessing eyes of coppery hue, wearing around his head a tiara of gold radiant like the flames of fire, the mighty armed Sudakṣiṇa, prince of the Kāmbojas, felled by Pārtha with his arrows, and lying dead on the ground, appeared beautiful like a charming hill with a flat summit.’⁵