An Index to the Names in the Mahabharata, with Short Explanations and a Concordance to the Bombay and Calcutta Editions and P. C. Roy's Translation c5.s1.190.2

c5.s1.190.2

The Pāṇḍavas, with Kṛṣṇa, proceed on the track of Bhīmasena: Kṛṣṇa, Arjuna, and Yudhishṭhira on Kṛṣṇa's car with steeds of the Kāmboja breed: Caibya on the right, Sugrīva on the left, Meghapuṣpa and Balāhaka being pārṣṇivāhas, the standard having been made by Viçvakarman and standing high like Māyā, with Garuḍa. They in vain ask Bhīma to stop. They find Aśvatthāman sitting with Vyāsa on the bank of Gaṅgā in the midst of many Ṛ.; he is attired in a piece of cloth made of Kuça-grass, etc. . . . He consecrates a blade of grass with Mantras, and converts it into that powerful celestial weapon, and throws it off with the words "for the destruction of the Pāṇḍavas" (X, 13). weapon imparted to him by Droṇa, which was capable of neutralizing all weapons. Extraordinary portents appear in nature. Nārada and Vyāsa, trying to save the three worlds, stand between the two fires (X, 14). Arjuna withdraws his weapon; but Aśvatthāman is incapable of withdrawing his, as no person of uncleansed soul can bring it back, after it has once been let off, but only a brahmacārin (and such a one is Arjuna); otherwise it strikes off his own head. Vyāsa praises Arjuna for not having before used the Brahmaciras weapon; "that region where Brahmaciras is baffled by another high weapon, suffers a drought for twelve years"; he proposes to him to give the Pāṇḍavas the gem on his head; then the Pāṇḍavas would in return grant him his life.