attle, while there
will be none whom he will not be able to vanquish. Why then hath that
Jishnu endued with great strength been subject to death? Oh, why doth
that Dhananjaya, relying on whom we had hitherto endured all this misery,
lie on the ground blighting[108] all my hopes! Why have those heroes,
those mighty sons of Kunti, Bhimasena and Dhananjaya, came under the
power of the enemy,--those who themselves always slew their foes, and
whom no weapons could resist! Surely, this vile heart of mine must be
made of adamant, since, beholding these twins lying today on the ground
it doth not split! Ye bulls among men, versed in holy writ and acquainted
with the properties of time and place, and endued with ascetic merit, ye
who duly performed all sacred rites, why lie ye down, without performing
acts deserving of you? Alas, why lie ye insensible on the earth, with
your bodies unwounded, ye unvanquished ones, and with your vows
untouched?' And beholding his brothers sweetly sleeping there as (they
usually did) on mountain slopes, the high souled king, overwhelmed with
grief and bathed in sweat, came to a distressful condition. And
saying,--It is even so--that virtuous lord of men, immersed in an ocean
of grief anxiously proceeded to ascertain the cause (of that
catastrophe). And that mighty-armed and high-souled one, acquainted with
the divisions of time and place, could not settle his course of action.
Having thus bewailed much in this strain, the virtuous Yudhishthira, the
son of Dharma or Tapu, restrained his soul and began to reflect in his
mind as to who had slain those heroes. 'There are no strokes of weapons
upon these, nor is any one's foot-print here. The being must be mighty I
ween, by whom my brothers have been slain. Earnestly shall I ponder over
this, or, let me first drink of the water, and then know all. It may be
that the habitually crooked-minded Duryodhana hath caused this water to
be secretly placed here by the king of the Gandharvas. What man of sense
can trust wicked wight of evil passions with whom good and evil are
alike? Or, perhaps, this may be an act of that wicked-souled one through
secret messengers of his.' And it was thus that that highly intelligent
one gave way to diverse reflections. He did not believe that water to
have been tainted with poison, for though dead no corpse-like pallor was
on them. 'The colour on the faces of these my brothers hath not faded!'
And it was thus that Yudhishthira t