Jalapradanika Parva — .— Contd. Karna's birth disclosed to the Pandavas. The water-rite is performed

Vaishampayana said Arrived at the holy Ganga full of sacred water, containing many lakes, adorned with high banks and broad shores, and having a vest bed, they threw off their ornaments, upper garments, and belts and girdles. The Kuru ladies, crying and stricken with great sorrow offered oblations of water of their fathers and grandsons and brothers and kinsmen and sons and seniors and husbands. Conversant with duties, they also performed the water-rite for their friends.

While those wives of heroes were performing this rite in honour of their heroic husband, the access to the stream became easy, although the paths (carved out by feet) disappeared afterwards.

The shores of their river though crowded with those wives of heroes, looked as broad as the ocean and presented a sorrow of sorrow and cheerlessness.

Then Kunti, O king, laden with grief, weepingly addressed her sons in these soft words.

That hero and great bowman, that chief of many car-divisions, that heroic warrior who has been killed by Arjuna in battle, that warrior whom, ye sons of Pandu, you knew as the son of the charioteer Radha, that hero who shone in the midst of his army like the Sun himself, who fought with all of you and your followers, who shone as he commanded the vast army of Duryodhana, who had no equal on Earth in energy, that hero who preferred glory to life, that brave warrior firm in truth and never fatigued with exertion, was your eldest brother! Offer oblations of water to that eldest brother of yours who was born of me by the Sun! That hero was born with a pair of earrings and clad in armour, and took after the Sun-God himself in effulgence.

Hearing these painful words of their mother, the Pandavas began to grieve for Karna. Indeed, they became more afflicted then ever.

Then that foremost of men, viz., the heroic Yudhishthira, sighing like a snake asked his mother,-'Were you the mother of that Karna who was like a sea having arrows for his billows, his tall standard for his vortex, his own mighty arms for a couple of huge alligators, his large car for his deep lake, and the sound of his palms or his tempestuous roar, and whose force none could withstand except Dlananjaya? How was that son resembling a very god born of you in former days?

The power of his arms scorched all of us! How, O mother, could you conceal him like a person concealing a fire within the folds of his cloth?

His might of arms was always adored by the Dhritarashtras even as we always worship the might of the wilder of Gandiva.

How was that foremost of powerful men, that first of car-warriors, who fought the united force of all the kings in battle, how was he a son of yours?

Was that foremost of all holders of weapons our eldest brother? How did you give birth to that child of wonderful prowess?

Alas, for your concealing this fact we have been undone! By the death of Karna, ourselves with all our friends have been greatly sorry.

The grief I fell at Karna's death is a hundred times great than that felt for the death of Abhimanyu and the sons of Draupadi, and the destruction of the Panchalas and the Kurus! Thinking of Karna, I am burning with grief, like a person thrown into a burning fire.

Nothing could have been unattainable by us, not excepting things belonging to the celestial region. Alas, this terrible carnage, so destructive of the Kurus, would not have taken place.

Thus bewailing, king Yudhishthira the just uttered loud wails of woe. The powerful king then offered oblations of water to his deceased elder brother.

Then all the ladies that crowded the shores of the river suddenly cried aloud.

The intelligent king of the Kurus, viz., Yudhishthira, had the wives and members of Karna's family brought before him.

The righteous-souled king performed, with them the water-rite in honor of his eldest brother. Having finished the ceremony, the king, with his mind greatly agitated, rose from the waters of Ganga."