Chapter 38

“Yudhishthira said, ‘When such a fate overtook that high-souled monarchwho was engaged in austere penances, notwithstanding the fact of hishaving such kinsmen as ourselves all alive, it seems to me, O regenerateone, that the end of human beings is difficult to guess. Alas, who wouldhave thought that the son of Vichitraviryya would thus be burnt to death.He had a hundred sons each endued with mighty arms and possessed of greatprosperity. The king himself had the strength of ten thousand elephants.Alas, even he has been burnt to death in a forest-conflagration! Alas, hewho had formerly been fanned with palm leaves by the fair hands ofbeautiful women was fanned by vultures with their wings after he had beenburnt to death in a forest-conflagration! He who was formerly roused fromsleep every morning by bands of Sutas and Magadhas had to sleep on thebare ground through the acts of my sinful self. I do not grieve for thefamous Gandhari who had been deprived of all her children. Observing thesame vows as her husband, she has attained to those very regions whichhave become his. I grieve, however, for Pritha who, abandoning theblazing prosperity of her sons, became desirous of residing in the woods.Fie on this sovereignty of ours, fie on our prowess, fie on the practicesof Kshatriyas! Though alive, we are really dead! O foremost of superiorBrahmanas, the course of Time is very subtle and difficult to understand,inasmuch as Kunti, abandoning sovereignty, became desirous of taking upher abode in the forest. How is it that she who was the mother ofYudhishthira, of Bhima, of Vijaya, was burnt to deathlike a helplesscreature. Thinking of this I become stupefied. In vain was the deity offire gratified at Khandava by Arjuna. Ingrate that he is, forgetting thatservice he has burnt to death the mother of his benefactor! Alas, howcould that deity burn the mother of Arjuna. Putting on the guise of aBrahmana, he had formerly come to Arjuna for soliciting a favour. Fie onthe deity of fire! Fie on the celebrated success of Partha’s shafts! Thisis another incident, O holy one, that appears to me to be productive ofgreater misery, for that lord of Earth met with death by union with afire that was not sacred. How could such a death overtake that royal sageof Kuru’s race who, after having ruled the whole Earth, was engaged inthe practice of penances. In that great forest there were fires that hadbeen sanctified with mantras. Alas, my father has made his exit from thisworld, coming in contact with an unsanctified fire! I suppose thatPritha, emaciated and reduced to a form in which all her nerves becamevisible, must have trembled in fear and cried aloud, saying,–O sonYudhishthira, and awaited the terrible approach of the conflagration. Shemust have also said,–O Bhima, rescue me from this danger–when she, mymother, was surrounded on all sides by that terrible conflagration. Amongall her sons, Sahadeva, was her darling. Alas, that heroic son ofMadravati did not rescue her.’ Hearing these lamentations of the king,those persons that were present there began to weep, embracing eachother. In fact, the five sons of Pandu were so stricken with grief thatthey resembled living creatures at the time of the dissolution of theuniverse. The sound of lamentations uttered by those weeping heroes,filling the spacious chambers of the palace, escaped therefrom andpenetrated the very welkin.”‘