Chapter 50

Janamejaya said, “Having sent the heroic sons of Pandu into exile, theselamentations, O Muni, of Dhritarashtra were perfectly futile. Why did theking permit his foolish son Duryodhana to thus incense those mightywarriors, the sons of Pandu? Tell us now, O Brahmana, what was the foodof the sons of Pandu, while they lived in the woods? Was it of thewilderness, or was it the produce of cultivation?”

Vaisampayana said, “Those bulls among men, collecting the produce of thewilderness and killing the deer with pure arrows, first dedicated aportion of the food to the Brahmanas, and themselves are the rest. For, Oking, while those heroes wielding large bows lived in the woods, theywere followed by Brahmanas of both classes, viz., those worshipping withfire and those worshipping without it. And there were ten thousandillustrious Snataka Brahmanas, all conversant with the means ofsalvation, whom Yudhishthira supported in the woods. And killing witharrows Rurus and the black deer and other kinds of clean animals of thewilderness, he gave them unto those Brahmanas. And no one that lived withYudhishthira looked pale or ill, or was lean or weak, or was melancholyor terrified. And the chief of the Kurus–the virtuous kingYudhishthira–maintained his brothers as if they were his sons, and hisrelatives as if they were his uterine brothers. And Draupadi of pure famefed her husbands and the Brahmanas, as if she was their mother; and lastof all took her food herself. And the king himself wending towards theeast, and Bhima, towards the south, and the twins, towards the west andthe north, daily killed with bow in hand the deer of the forest, for thesake of meat. And it was that the Pandavas lived for five years in thewoods of Kamyaka, in anxiety at the absence of Arjuna, and engaged allthe while in study and prayers and sacrifices.”