Arjuna), Yudhishthira summoned all his brothers, together with Draupadi
and said these words, 'We have passed these four years peacefully ranging
the woods. It hath been appointed by Vibhatsu that about the fifth year
he will come to that monarch of mountains, the excellent cliff Sweta,
ever graced with festivities held by blooming plants and maddened Kokilas
and black bees, and peacocks, and chatakas and inhabited by tigers, and
boars and buffaloes, and gavayas, and deer, and ferocious beasts; and
sacred; and lovely with blown lotuses of a hundred and a thousand petals,
and blooming lilies and blue lilies and frequented by the celestials and
the Asuras. And we also, eagerly anxious of meeting him on his arrival
have made up our minds to repair thither. Partha of unrivalled prowess
hath appointed with me, saying, 'I shall remain abroad for five years,
with the object of learning military science.' In the place like unto the
region of the gods, shall we behold the wielder of Gandiva, arrive after
having obtained the weapons.' Having said this, the Pandava summoned the
Brahmanas, and the sons of Pritha having gone round the ascetics of rigid
austerities and thereby pleased them, informed them of the matter
mentioned above. Thereupon the Brahmanas gave their assent, saying, 'This
shall be attended by prosperity and welfare. O foremost of the Bharatas,
these troubles shall result in happiness. O pious one, gaining the earth
by the Kshatriya virtue, thou shall govern it.' Then in obedience to
these words of the ascetics, that represser of foes, Yudhishthira, set
out with his brothers and those Brahmanas, followed by the Rakshasa and
protected by Lomasa. And that one of mighty energy, and of staunch vows,
with his brothers, at places went on foot and at others were carried by
the Rakshasas. Then king Yudhishthira, apprehending many troubles,
proceeded towards the north abounding in lions and tigers and elephants.
And beholding on the way the mountain Mainaka and the base of the
Gandhamadana and that rocky mass Sweta and many a crystal rivulet higher
and higher up the mountain, he reached on the seventeenth day the sacred
slopes of the Himalayas. And, O king, not far from the Gandhamadana,
Pandu's son beheld on the sacred slopes of the Himavan covered with
various trees and creepers the holy hermitage of Vrishaparva surrounded
by blossoming trees growing near the cascades. And when those repressers
of foes, the sons of Pandu, had