Itihāsa / Mahābhārata chronicle / Śalya · 39 of 50
39. Śalya's morning
Śalya (शल्य)
The eighteenth morning belongs to Śalya. Duryodhana has almost no one left to give the command to, and the uncle who spent two days insulting Karṇa is now the marshal of what remains. It is a short command. Yudhiṣṭhira faces him. The poem, which has let the eldest Pāṇḍava stand back from many duels, gives him this one. A king falls to a king. Śalya dies. The page says that he falls. It does not describe the duel.
Śakuni, the dicer, falls to Sahadeva, the youngest, who has been quiet since the hall. The poem likes the assignment. The hand that threw the dice is answered by the brother who watched. The Kuru army, as an army, comes apart. What is left is not a formation. It is Duryodhana, and three men who will matter after dark: Aśvatthāman, Kṛpa, and Kṛtavarman.
Duryodhana leaves the field. He is not ready to die in the open that has taken everyone else. There is a lake. He enters it, and by a skill the poem grants him he hardens the water around him and waits. The war looks, for an hour, as if it has misplaced its cause.
नेपालीमा
अठारौँ बिहान शल्यको हो। युधिष्ठिर उनीसामु उभिए। एक राजा अर्का राजाको हातबाट ढले। यो पृष्ठले द्वन्द्वको तरिका लेख्दैन। शकुनि सहदेवको हातमा ढल्यो, सभामा चुप लागेर हेरेका कान्छा भाइको हातमा। कुरु सेना अब सेनाजस्तो रहेन। बाँकी रहे दुर्योधन, र रातपछि महत्त्व राख्ने तीन जना: अश्वत्थामा, कृप, कृतवर्मा। दुर्योधन तालमा लुक्यो। पानीलाई कडा पारेर बस्यो।