uction hath
come for the Kurus! Oh, perhaps, what is inevitable must happen! The
wind, impelled or not, will move. The woman that conceives will bring
forth. Darkness will be dispelled at dawn, and day disappear at evening!
Whatever may be earned by us or others, whether people spend it or not,
when the time cometh, those possessions of ours do bring on misery. Why
then do people become so anxious about earning wealth? If, indeed, what
is acquired is the result of fate, then should it be protected so that it
may not be divided, nor lost little by little, nor permitted to flow out
at once, for if unprotected, it may break into a hundred fragments. But
whatever the character of our possessions, our acts in the world are
never lost. Behold what the energy of Arjuna is, who went into the abode
of Indra from the woods! Having mastered the four kinds of celestial
weapons he hath come back into this world! What man is there who, having
gone to heaven in his human form, wisheth to come back? This would never
have been but because he seeth innumerable Kurus to be at the point of
death, afflicted by Time! The bowman is Arjuna, capable of wielding the
bow with his left hand as well! The bow he wieldeth is the Gandiva of
fierce impetus. He hath, besides, those celestial weapons of his! Who is
there that would bear the energy of these three!"

"Hearing these words of the monarch, the son of Suvala, going unto
Duryodhana, who was then sitting with Kama, told them everything in
private. And Duryodhana, though possessed of little sense, was filled
with grief at what he heard."

SECTION CCXXXV

Vaisampayana said, "Hearing those words of Dhritarashtra, Sakuni, when
the opportunity presented itself, aided by Kama, spoke unto Duryodhana
these words, 'Having exiled the heroic Pandavas by thy own prowess, O
Bharata, rule thou this earth without a rival like the slayer of Samvara
ruling the heaven! O monarch, the kings of the east, the south, the west,
and the north, have all been made tributory to thee! O lord of earth,
that blazing Prosperity which had before paid her court to the sons of
Pandu, hath now been acquired by thee along with thy brothers! That
blazing Prosperity, O king, which we not many days ago saw with heavy
hearts in Yudhishthira at Indraprastha, is today seen by us to be owned
by thee, she having, O mighty-armed monarch, been snatched by thee from
the royal Yudhishthira by force of intellect alone. O slayer of hostil