is, became such that none could look at it without
awe."'"[1393]

SECTION CCLXXXII

"'Bhishma said, "Listen, O king, to me as I tell thee the symptoms that
appeared on the body of Vritra when he was overtaken by that fever (born
of the energy of Mahadeva). The heroic Asura's mouth began to emit flames
of fire. He became exceedingly pale. His body began to tremble all over.
His breath became hard and thick. His hairs stood on end. His memory, O
Bharata, issued out of his mouth in the form of a fierce, dreadful, and
inauspicious jackal. Burning and blazing meteors fell on his right and
left. Vultures and Kanakas and cranes, gathering together, uttered fierce
cries, as they wheeled over Vritra's head. Then, in that encounter,
Indra, adored by the gods, and armed with the thunderbolt, looked hard at
the Daitya as the latter sat on his car. Possessed by that violent fever,
the mighty Asura, O monarch, yawned and uttered inhuman cries.[1394]
While the Asura was yawning Indra hurled his thunderbolt at him. Endued
with exceedingly great energy and resembling the fire that destroys the
creation at the end of the Yuga, that thunderbolt overthrew in a trice
Vritra of gigantic form. Loud shouts were once more uttered by the gods
on all sides when they beheld Vritra slain, O bull of Bharata's race!
Having slain Vritra, Maghavat, that foe of the Danavas, possessed of
great fame, entered heaven with that thunderbolt pervaded by Vishnu. Just
then, O thou of Kuru's race, the sin of Brahmanicide (in her embodied
form), fierce and awful and inspiring all the worlds with dread, issued
out of the body of the slain Vritra. Of terrible teeth and awful, hideous
for ugliness, and dark and tawny, with hair dishevelled, and dreadful
eyes, O Bharata, with a garland of skulls round her neck, and looking
like an (Atharvan) Incantation (in its embodied form), O bull of
Bharata's race, covered all over with blood, and clad in rags and barks
of trees, O thou of righteous soul, she came out of Vritra's body. Of
such dreadful form and mien, O monarch, she sought the wielder of the
thunderbolt (for possessing him). A little while after, O thou of Kuru's
race, the slayer of Vritra, on some purpose connected with the good of
the three worlds, was proceeding towards heaven. Beholding Indra of great
energy thus proceeding on his mission, she seized the chief of the
deities and from that moment stuck to him.[1395] When the sin of
Brahmanicide thus stuck t