द्वितीय राजतरङ्गिणी (जोनराज - कल्हणोत्तर मध्यकालीन कश्मीर का प्रामाणिक इतिहास)

316 KINGS OF KASHMÍRA.
their ranks in order to fight. The soldiers, armed
with sword and shield, approached with shouts, and
moved in array, as the swans do across the sky.
Ahlāda Ṭhakkura's phalanx engaged them as they
advanced to the front, but his troops were defeated.
Armed men shouted like thunder, and their arms
flashed like lightning, and they came out with shields
for battle. The field of battle was uneven and muddy,
and the roads leading to it were difficult to traverse,
but the soldiers came to it as if it were their own home.
When the army of Ahlāda Ṭhakkura saw the foreign
troops, and the waving of their shields, they lost heart,
and like sparrows fled afar. Ahlāda Ṭhakkura could not
stay the broken and the fleeing army, which was like a
river that had broken its embankment. Some of them
ran crying 'I will flee,' 'I will flee', and died of the wounds
they received ; and thus they paid with their life the wages
they had received. Their bodies were besmeared with
blood, and lay on the field of the sāli crop, and looked
like beasts that had been sacrificed on fields during
some religious ceremony. The army of the Khāna
which came from the south-west and broke the king's
force, even as the wind breaks the trees, was like a
tempest that destroyed men. Some Kashmīrians
perished by the flame like arms of the foreign soldiers,
as if they sacrificed their persons in fire. What is the
use of mentioning the names of those who fled to save
themselves, when they saw the array of troops reduced