their command, the string of the bow broke. The string having
broken, the bow became stretched into a line. The gods then approached
the bowless god of gods and, with the embodied form of Sacrifice, sought
the protection of the puissant Mahadeva and endeavoured to gratify him.

"'Gratified, the great god threw his wrath into the water, O king, that
wrath, assuming the form of fire, is always employed in consuming that
liquid element. He then gave unto Savitri his arms, Bhaga his eyes, and
Pushana his teeth. And he also restored the Sacrifices themselves, O
Pandava! The world once more became safe and sound. The gods assigned
unto Mahadeva all the libations of clarified butter as the share of great
deity. O monarch, when Mahadeva had become angry, the whole world had
thus become agitated: when he became gratified everything became safe.
Possessed of great energy, the god Mahadeva was gratified with
Ashvatthama. It was for this that thy sons, those mighty car-warriors,
could be slain by that warrior. It was for this that many other heroes,
the Pancalas, with all their followers, could be slain by him. Thou
shouldst not suffer thy mind to dwell on it. It was not Drona's son that
accomplished that act. It was done through the grace of Mahadeva. Do now
what should next be done.'"

The end of Sauptika-parva.

The Mahabharata

of

Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

BOOK 11

Stri-parva

Translated into English Prose from the Original Sanskrit Text

by

Kisari Mohan Ganguli

[1883-1896]

Scanned and Proofed by Mantra Caitanya. Additional proofing and
formatting at sacred-texts.com, by J. B. Hare, October 2003.

1

(Jalapradanika-parva)

Om! Having bowed down unto Narayana and Nara, the foremost of male
beings, and unto the goddess Sarasvati, must the word Jaya be uttered.

Janamejaya said, "After Duryodhana had fallen and after all the warriors
also had fallen, what, O sage, did king Dhritarashtra do on receipt of
the intelligence? What also did the high-souled Kuru king Yudhishthira,
the son of Dharma, do? What did the three survivors (of the Kuru army)
viz. Kripa and the others do? I have heard everything about the feats of
Ashvatthama. Tell me what happened after that mutual denunciation of
curses. Tell me all that Sanjaya said unto the blind old king."

Vaishampayana said, "After he had lost his century of sons, king
Dhritarashtra, afflicted with grief on that account, cheerless, and
l