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Válmiki
Yoga-Vāsistha, Book 3: Utpatti-Prakarana (Evolution of the World). Chapter 49 - Description of Other Kinds of Weapons
Then blew the icy winds of winter, blasting the beauty of the foliage of forest trees, and shaking and breaking the beautiful arbors, and covering them with gusts of dust.
Then rose the gale whirling the trees like birds flying in the air, dashing and smashing the soldiers on the ground, and hurling and breaking the edifices to dust.
This fearful squall blew away Vidūratha and his force, as a rapid current carries away the broken and rotten fragments of wood.
Then Vidūratha who was skilled in ballistics hurled his huge and heavy arrows, which stretched themselves to the sky, and withstood the force of the winds and rain.
Opposed by these rock-like barriers, the airy weapons were at a stand still, as the animal spirits are checked by the firm stoicity of the soul.
The trees which had been blown up by the winds and floating in the breezy air, now came down and fell upon the dead bodies, like flocks of crows upon putrid carcasses.
The shouting (sūtkāra) of the city, the distant hum (dātkāra) of the village, the howling (bhānkāra) of forests, and the rustling (utkāra) of the trees, ceased on all sides like the vain verbilogy of men.
Sindhu saw burning rocks (rockets?) falling from above like leaves of trees, and flying about as the winged Mainākas or moving rocks of the sea or Sinde (sindhu).
He then hurled his thundering weapons, falling as flaming thunderbolts from heaven, which burnt the rocks away as the flaming fire destroys the darkness.
These falling bolts broke the stones with their pointed ends, and hewed down the heads (tops) of the hills, like a hurricane scattering the fruits of trees on the ground.
Vidūratha then darted his Brahmā weapon to quell the thunderbolts, which jostling against one another, disappeared in their mutual conflict.
Sindhu then cast his demoniac weapons (Piśācāstras) as black as darkness, which fled as lines of horrid Piśāca demons on all sides.
They filled the firmament with the darkness of their bodies, and made the daylight turn to the shade of night, as if it were for fear of them.
They were as stalwart in their figures as huge columns of smoke, and as dark in their complexion as the blackest pitch, and tangible by the hand.
They were as lean skeletons with erect hairs on their heads and bearded faces, with looks as pale as those of beggars and bodies as black as those of the aerial and nocturnal fiends.
They were terrific and like idiots in their looks, and moved about with bones and skulls in their hands. They were as meagre as churls, but more cruel than either the sword or thunderbolt.
The Piśācas lurk about the woods, bogs and highways, and pry into empty and open door houses. They hunt about the ghosts in their dark forms, and fly away as fast as the fleeting lightning.
They ran and attacked with fury the remaining forces of the enemy, that stood weaponless in the field, with their broken and sorrowful hearts.
Frightened to death they stood motionless, and dropped down their arms and armours and stood petrified as if they were demon-struck, with staring eyes, open mouths, and unmoving hands and feet.
They let fall both their lower and upper garments, loosened their bowels and slackened their bodies through fear, and kept shaking as fixed trees by the winds.
The line of the Piśācas then advanced to frighten Vidūratha out of his wits, but he had the good sense to understand them as the mere Mumbo-jumbos of magic.
He knew the counter charm to fight out the Pīścas from the field, and employed his charmed weapons against the Piśāca army of his enemy.
He darted in his ire the Rūpikā weapon, which gave comfort to his own army, and deluded the Piśāca force of his adversary.
These Rūpikās flew in the air with erect hairs on their heads; their terrific eyes wee sunk in their sockets, and their waists and breasts moved as trees with bunches of fruit.
They had past their youth and become old; and their bodies were bulky and worn out with age; they had defonned backs and hips and protuberant navels and naves.
They had dark dusky bodies, and held human skulls in their hands all besmeared with blood. They had bits of half devoured flesh in their mouths, and pouring out fresh blood from their sides.
They had a variety of gestures, motions and contortions of their bodies, which were as hard as stone, with wry faces, crooked backs and twisted legs and limbs.
Some had their faces like those of dogs, crows, and owls, with broad mouths and flat check-bones and bellies, and held human skulls and entrails in their hands.
They laid , hold of the Piśācas as men catch little boys, and joined with them in one body as their consorts. (i.e. the Rūpikā witches bewitching the demoniac Piśācas, got the better of them).
They joined together in dancing and singing with outstretched arms and mouths and eyes, now joining hand in hand and now pursuing one another in their merry sport.
They stretched their long tongues from their horrid mouths, and licked away the blood exuding from the wounds of the dead bodies.
They plunged in the pool of blood with as much delight, as if they dived in a pond of ghee, and scrabbled in the bloody puddle with outstretched arms and feet, and uplifted ears and nose.
They rolled and jostled with one another in the puddle of carrion and blood, and made it swell like the milky ocean when churned by the Mandara mountain.
As Vidūratha employed his magic weapon against the magic of Sindhu, so he had recourse to others from a sense of his inferiority.
He darted his Vetāla weapon, which made the dead bodies, whether with or without their heads, to rise up in a body in their ghastly shapes.
The joint forces of the Vetālas, Piśācas and Rūpikās presented a dreadful appearances as that of the Kabandhas, and seemed as they were ready to destroy the earth.
The other monarch was not slow to show his magical skill, by hurling his Rāksasa weapon, which threatened to grasp and devour the three worlds.
These with their gigantic bodies rose as high as mountains, and seemed as hellish fiends appearing from the infernal regions in their ghostly forms.
The ferocious body of the roaring Rāks asas, terrified both the gods and demigods (surāsuras), by their loud martial music and war dance of their headless trunks (Kavandhas).
The giddy Vetālas, Yaksas, Kusmāndas, devoured the fat and flesh of dead bodies as their toast, and drank the gory blood as their lurid wines in the course of their war dance.
The hopping and jumping of the Kus māndas, in their war dance in streams of blood, scattered its crimson particles in the air, which assembled in the form of a bridge of red evening clouds over the sparkling sea.
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