there one night, being engaged in
austerities And it came to pass that on the next I saw a certain
Brahmana. And he asked me, saying, 'O son of Kunti, whither wilt thou
go?' Thereupon, O descendant of the Kurus, I truly related unto him
everything. And, O best of kings, having heard the true account, the
Brahmana became well-pleased with me, and, O king, praised me. Then the
Brahmana, pleased with me, said, 'O Bharata, be thou engaged in
austerities. By performing penances, thou wilt in a short time behold the
lord of the celestials.' And according to his advice I ascended the
Himavan, and, O mighty king, began to practise penances, (the first)
month subsisting on fruit and roots. I spent the second month, subsisting
on water. And, O Pandava, in the third month I totally abstained from
food. And in the fourth month I remained with upraised arms. And a wonder
it is that I did not lose any strength. And it came to pass that when the
first day of the fifth month had been spent, there appeared before me a
being wearing the form of a boar, turning up the earth with his mouth,
stamping the ground with his feet, rubbing the earth with his breast, and
momentarily going about in a frightful manner. And him followed a great
being in the guise of a hunter furnished with the bow, arrows, and the
sword, and surrounded by females. Thereupon, taking my bow and the two
inexhaustible quivers, I pierced with shafts that terrible and frightful
creature. And simultaneously (with me) that hunter also drawing a strong
bow, more severely struck at (the animal), as if shaking my mind. And, O
king, he also said unto me, 'Why hast thou, transgressing the rules of
hunting, hit the animal first hit at by me? With these sharpened shafts
will I destroy thy pride. Stay!' Then that mighty-bodied one holding the
bow rushed at me. And with volleys of mighty shafts, he covered me
entirely, even as a cloud covereth a mountain with showers. Then, on my
part, I covered him with a mighty discharge of arrows. Thereupon, with
steady arrows having their points aflame, and inspired with mantras, I
pierced him even as (Indra) riveth a mountain with a thunderbolt. Then
his person began to be multiplied a hundredfold and a thousandfold. At
this, I pierced all this bodies with shafts. Then again all those forms
became one, O Bharata. Thereat I struck at it. Next, he now assumed a
small body with a huge head, and now a huge body with a small head. And,
O king, he then