The Last Day: Śalya and Śakuni Fall

Classical

After Karṇa falls, Śalya becomes the last commander. The eighteenth day begins with the Kaurava army reduced to fragments and the Pāṇḍavas determined to finish quickly. Śalya fights fiercely against Yudhiṣṭhira and Bhīma, breaks the king's bow twice and kills his horses and charioteer, while Kṛpa helps him from the side.

Bhīma answers with a hail of arrows, kills Śalya's driver and horses and strips his armour. Śalya takes up sword and shield and leaps down to fight on foot. Bhīma cuts the shield with ten arrows and the sword at the hilt, and the whole Pāṇḍava host roars. Yet Śalya still goes straight for Yudhiṣṭhira, the man he has promised to fight, and the king is left on a chariot without horses or driver.

Yudhiṣṭhira remembers Kṛṣṇa's counsel and what had been set aside as his own share of the enemy. He takes up a golden spear which the Pāṇḍavas have long honoured with perfumes and garlands, and looks at Śalya with wide eyes. Sañjaya remarks that the king's anger should have burned him to ash, but he stood. Yudhiṣṭhira hurls the spear with the words 'Thou art slain', and it pierces Śalya's chest and goes into the earth.

Śalya falls with arms stretched towards Yudhiṣṭhira, like a banner dropped at the end of a festival. His own younger brother then attacks Yudhiṣṭhira to avenge him and is killed in turn. With Śalya's death the Madra troops break, and the army, now with Śakuni and his Gandhāra horsemen, takes the field once more.

Śakuni's turn comes soon after. His son Uluka is cut down by Sahadeva with a broad-headed arrow. Śakuni, weeping, hits Sahadeva with a lance, then with a scimitar, a mace and a spear, and Sahadeva cuts every one in two or three. At last Sahadeva severs Śakuni's arms with three arrows and takes off his head with a fourth. The Pāṇḍavas call it the head that was the root of the Kauravas' evil counsel, and the Kaurava army flees. Of eleven akṣauhiṇīs only Duryodhana is left.

Told by Sañjaya → Dhṛtarāṣṭra

Who: Śalya, Yudhiṣṭhira, Bhīma, Sahadeva, Śakuni, Uluka, Kṛpa

Bound to

Shakuni's dice from his father's bones mirror

The Fall of Karṇa: the Sinking Wheel origin

Duryodhana Hides in the Dvaipāyana Lake origin

Places: Kurukṣetra

Where this comes from

read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (text as scanned on archive.org; mahabharataonline.com section pages could not be opened from the working environment) Salya Parva, Sections XVI-XVII (Yudhishthira and Salya), XXVIII (Sahadeva and Shakuni), XXIX

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