e to foemen and to friends and kinsmen slain,
None shall lack a fitting funeral, none shall perish on the plain.

Then, no one being there to dispute it, he took possession of the
realm, always dutifully according precedence to his blind uncle, who
deeply mourned his fallen sons.

Wishing to govern wisely, the eldest Pandav sought the wounded
general, Bhishma,--who still lay on his arrowy bed in the
battle-field,--and who, having given him rules for wise government,
breathed his last in the presence of this Pandav, who saw his spirit
rise from his divided skull and mount to the skies "like a bright
star." The body was then covered with flowers and borne down to the
Ganges, where, after it had been purified by the sacred waters, it was
duly burned.

The new king's mind was, however, so continually haunted by the
horrors of the great battle-field that, hoping to find relief, he
decided to perform a horse sacrifice. Many chapters of the poem are
taken up in relating the twelve adventures of this steed, which was
accompanied everywhere by Arjuna, who had to wage many a fight to
retain possession of the sacred animal and prevent any hand being laid
upon him. Then we have a full description of the seventeen ceremonies
pertaining to this strange rite.

Victor of a hundred battles, Arjun bent his homeward way,
Following still the sacred charger free to wander as it may,
Strolling minstrels to Yudhishthir spake of the returning steed,
Spake of Arjun wending homeward with the victor's crown of meed.

Next we learn that the blind king, still mourning the death of his
sons, retired to the bank of the Ganges, where he and his wife spent
their last years listening to the monotonous ripple of the sacred
waters. Fifteen years after the great battle, the five Pandavs and
Draupadi came to visit him, and, after sitting for a while on the
banks of the sacred stream, bathed in its waters as Vyasa advised
them. While doing so they saw the wraiths of all their kinsmen slain
in the Great Battle rise from the boiling waters, and passed the night
in conversation with them, although these spirits vanished at dawn
into thin air. But the widows of the slain then obtained permission to
drown themselves in the Ganges, in order to join their beloved
husbands beyond the tomb.

"These and other mighty warriors, in the earthly battle slain,
By their valor and their virtue walk the bright ethereal plain!
They have cast their mortal