Accordingly the warders of the garden went and reported to Śachí the message of Satyabhámá. Śachí appealed to her husband, and excited the king of the gods to resent this affront: and Indra accordingly, attended by the army of the celestials, marched to attack Hari, in defence of the Párijáta tree. The gods were armed with clubs, swords, maces, and darts; and Indra wielded the thunderbolt. As soon as Govinda saw the king of the gods advancing against him on his elephant, attended by the immortals, he blew his shell so that the sound filled all the regions, and he showered smilingly myriads of arrows upon his assailants. Beholding the air in all directions overspread with his darts, the celestials in return hurled innumerable missiles; but every one of these the destroyer of Madhu, and lord of all worlds, cut playfully into a thousand pieces with his shafts. The devourer of serpents, Garud́a, laid hold of the noose of the sovereign of the waters, and tore it to fragments with his beak, as if it had been a little snake. The son of Devakí threw his mace at the club of Yama, and cast it broken upon the ground: he cut in bits the litter of the lord of wealth with his discus: a glance of his eye eclipsed the radiance of the sun: he severed Agni into a hundred parts with his arrows, and scattered the Vasus through the realms of space: with his discus he cut off the points of the tridents of the Rudras, and cast themselves upon the earth: and with the shafts shot from his bow he dispersed the Sádhyas, Viśwas, Maruts, and Gandharbas, like fleeces of cotton from the pods of the Simel tree, through the sky. Garud́a also diligently plied his beak and wings and nails, and bit and bruised and scratched the deities who opposed his lord.

Then the king of the gods and the foe of Madhu encountered and overwhelmed each other with countless shafts, like rain-drops falling from two heavy clouds. Garud́a in the conflict engaged with Airávata, and Janárddana was opposed to all the deities. When all the other weapons had been cut to pieces, Indra stood armed with his thunderbolt,