professions of friendship and goodwill The Pandavas were conquered and
driven into a far country, where they wandered homelessly and yet filled
with undying love for the old home of their fathers and with a resolve
to regain at the first opportunity their ancestral territory.

With the help of as many princes and generals as they could win to their
side they marched towards the land which they had lost, taking back by
force what had been wrested from them by force. The two armies met face
to face on the field of Kurukshetra (land of the Kurus), and the battle,
which lasted eighteen days, was about to begin. The father and king of
the Kauravas, called Dhritarashtra, aged and blind, felt that he could
not stand to witness the bloody affray. He accordingly accepted the
offer of Vyasa (Krishna), a relative of both the contending parties, to
have the entire course of events described to him when all was over, one
Sangara, being deputed to perform the task. The battle began and
proceeded for ten long days when Bhrisma, the chief general of the
Kauravas, fell.

At this point Sangara advanced to the old King Dhritarashtra to acquaint
him with the course things had taken, and among the rest to recite to
him a conversation which had taken place between Krishna and Arguna, the
Pandavan prince and general. It is this dialogue which constitutes the
Holy Song, known as the Bhagavad-Gita, or Krishna Song, the Krishna of
this philosophic poem being, of course, the eighth avatara; or
incarnation, of Vishnu.

The remaining books of the Mahabharata recount the subsequent incidents
of the war, which, in all, lasted for eighteen days. The Kauravas were
destroyed, the only survivors being the Pandavas and Krishna with his
charioteer. The many dead that were left on the field were buried with
the rites of religion, and amid many signs of touching affection and
grief.

Bhrisma, leader of the Kauravas, instructs Yudhishthira on the duties of
kings and other topics. The poem then ends.

THE BHAGAVAD-GITA, OR HOLY SONG OF BRAHMANISM

This poem forms one of the finest episodes in the great Iliad of India,
and, in fact, is hardly surpassed for profound thought, deep feeling,
and exquisite phrasing, in the whole literature of India. Telang holds
that the song is at least as old as the 4th century, and is inclined to
regard it as an original part of the epic. According to most scholars,
however, the "Divine Song" was added at a later period