Naradagamana Parva — Yudhishthira's Lamentations

When such a fate overtook that great king who was engaged in austere penances, despite the fact of his having such kinsmen as ourselves all alive. It seems to me, O twice born one, that the end of human beings is difficult to guess. Alas, who would have thought that the son of Vichitravirya would thus be burns to death.

He had a hundred sons each gifted with mighty-arms and possessed of great prosperity! The king himself had the strength of ten thousand elephants, Alas, even he has been burnt to death in a wild fire.

Alas, he had formerly been fanned with palm leaves by the fair hands of beautiful women, was fanned by vultures with their wings after he had been burnt to death in a wild fire.

He was formerly roused from sleep every morning by bands of Sutas and Magadhas had to sleep on the naked earth through the acts of my sinful self.

I do not grieve for the famous Gandhari who had been deprived of all her children. Observing the same vows as her husband. she has acquired those very regions which have become his.

I grieve, however, for Pritha who, renouncing the blazing prosperity of her sons, became desirous of living in the forest.

Fie on this sovereignty of ours, fie on our prowess, fie on the practices of Kshatriyas! Though alive, we are really dead.

O foremost of superior Brahmanas, the course of Time is very subtle and difficult to understand inasmuch as Kunti, casting off sovereignty, became desirous so living in the forest.

How is it that she who was the mother of Yudhishthira, of Bhima, of Vijaya, was brunt to death like helpless creature! Thinking of this I become stupefied.

In vain was the god of fire pleased at Khandava by Arjuna! Ingrate that he is, forgetting that service, he has burnt to death the mother of his benefactor.

Alas, how could that deity burn the mother of Arjuna! Putting, on the guise of Brahmana, he had formerly come to Arjuna, for begging a favour! Fie on the deity of fire! Fie on the celebrated success of Partha's arrows.

This is another incident, O holy one, which appears to me to be productive of greater misery, for that king, met with death by union with a fire that was not sacred! How could such a death overtake thai royal sage of Kuru's family who, after having governed the whole Earth, was engaged in the practice of penances! In that great forest there were fires that had been sanctified with Mantras. Alas, my father has made his departure from has world, coming

I suppose that Pritha, emaciated and reduced to a from in which all her nerves became visible, must have trembled in fear and cried aloud, saying, O son Yudhishthira! and awaited the terrible approach of the fire.

She must have also said, O Bhima, save me from this danger! when she, my mother, was surrounded on all sides y that dreadful fire.

Among all her sons, Sahadeva was her darling. Alas, that heroic son of Madravati did not rescue her!'

Hearing these bewailings of the king. all those person who were present there began to weep, embracing each other. In fact, the five sons of Pandu were so stricken with grief that they resembled living creatures at the time of the dissolution of the universe.

The sound of lamentations uttered by those weeping heroes, filling the spacious chambers of the palace, escaped therefrom and penetrated the very sky.