"[A] sign of ancient brutality . . . common to both the Mahābhārata and the Nibelungenliede [is that] the blood of the slain foe is drunk. As he had already sworn at the game, Bhīmasena drinks the blood of Duḥ çāsana who is slain by him and calls out: never did I drink so sweet (this is even better than wine, it is said in the Nibelungenlied). This trait was too horrific to the later redactors; with lamentable sophistry they present the state of affairs as though Bhīmasena never really drank the blood, it reached his lips and not his throat and then he spat it out again."