And Vrikodara easily defeated those
hundred and one children of great energy as if they were one instead of
being a hundred and one. The second Pandava used to seize them by the hair,
and throwing them down, to drag them along the earth. By this, some had
their knees broken, some their heads, and some their shoulders. That youth,
sometimes holding ten of them, drowned them in water, till they were
nearly dead. When the sons of Dhritarashtra got up to the boughs of a tree
for plucking fruits, Bhima used to shake that tree, by striking it with
his foot, so that down came the fruits and the fruitpluckers at the same
time. In fact, those princes were no match for Bhima in pugilistic
encounters, in speed, or in skill. Bhima used to make a display of his
strength by thus tormenting them in childishness but not from malice.
"Seeing these wonderful exhibitions of the might of Bhima, the powerful
Duryodhana, the eldest son of Dhritarashtra, began to conceive hostility
towards him. And the wicked and unrighteous Duryodhana, through ignorance
and ambition, prepared himself for an act of sin. He thought, 'There is no
other individual who can compare with Bhima, the second son of Pandu, in
point of prowess. I shall have to destroy him by artifice. Singly, Bhima
dares a century of us to the combat. Therefore, when he shall sleep in the
garden, I shall throw him into the current of the Ganga. Afterwards,
confining his eldest brother Yudhishthira and his younger brother Arjuna,
I shall reign sole king without molestation.
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