Now at this time there lived close to the gate a Licchavi named Mahali , who had been educated by the same teacher as the king of Kosala's general, Bandhula. This man was blind, and used to advise the Licchavis on all matters temporal and spiritual. Hearing the clatter of the chariot as it went over the threshold, he said, "The noise of the chariot of Bandhula the Mallian! [149] This day there will be fear for the Licchavis!" By the tank there was set a strong guard, within and without; above it was spread an iron net; not even a bird could find room to get through. But the general, dismounting from his car, put the guards to flight with the blows of his sword, and burst through the iron network, and in the tank bathed his wife and gave her to drink of the water; then after bathing himself, he set Mallika in the chariot, and left the town, and went back by the way he came.

The guards went and told all to the Licchavis. Then were the kings of the Licchavis angry; and five hundred of them, mounted in five hundred chariots, departed to capture Bandhula the Mallian. They informed Mahali of it, and he said, "Go not! for he will slay you all." But they said, "Nay, but we will go." "Then if you come to a place where a wheel has sunk up to the nave, you must return. If you return not then, return back from that place when you hear the noise of a thunderbolt. If then you turn not, turn back from that place where you shall see a hole in front of your chariots. Go no further!" But they did not turn back according to his word, but pursued on and on. Mallika espied them and said, "There are chariots in sight, my lord." "Then tell me," said he, "when they all look like one chariot." When they all in a line looked like one, she said, "My lord, I see as it were the head of one chariot." "Take the reins, then," said he, and gave the reins into her hand: he stood upright in the chariot, and strung his bow. The chariot-wheel sank into the earth nave-deep. The Licchavis came to the place, and saw it, but turned not back. The other went on a little further, and twanged the bow string; then came a noise as the noise of a thunderbolt, yet even then they turned not, but pursued on and on. Bandhula stood up in the chariot and sped a shaft, and it cleft the heads of all the five hundred chariots, and passed right through the five hundred kings in the place where the girdle is fastened, and then buried itself in the earth. They not perceiving that they were wounded pursued still, shouting, "Stop, holloa, stop!" Bandhula stopt his chariot, and said, "You are dead men, and I cannot fight with the dead." "What!" said they, "dead, such as we now are?" "Loose the girdle of the first man," said Bandhula.