son, when he with his sons perpetrated this inhuman
act, beheld on the spot where dead bodies are burnt,
flowering trees of a golden hue. Verily he must
have asked them, when those stood before him with their
shoulders projected forward towards him, and with
their large red eyes staring at him, and he must have
listened to their evil advice, since he fearlessly
sent away Yudhishthira to the forest, who had all his
weapons of war with him and was borne company by his
younger brothers. This Bhima here, whose voracious
appetite is like that of a wolf, is able to destroy
with the sole strength of his powerful arms, and without
the help of any weapons of war, a formidable array
of hostile troops. The forces in the field of
battle were utterly unmanned on hearing his war-cry.
And now the strong one is suffering from hunger and
thirst, and is emaciated with toilsome journeys.
But when he will take up in his hand arrows and diverse
other weapons of war, and meet his foes in the field
of battle, he will then remember the sufferings of
his exceedingly miserable forest-life, and kill his
enemies to a man: of a certainty do I anticipate
this. There is not throughout the whole world
a single soul who can boast of strength and prowess
equal to his. And his body, alas! is emaciated
with cold, and heat and winds. But when he will
stand up for fight, he will not leave a single man
out of his foes. This powerful hero, who is a
very great warrior when mounted on a car—this
Bhima, of appetite rivalling a wolf’s conquered
single-handed all the rulers of men in the east, together
with, those who followed them in battle; and he returned
from those wars safe and uninjured. And that same
Bhima, miserably dressed in the bark of trees, is
now leading a wretched life in the woods. This
powerful Sahadeva vanquished all the kings in the
south; those lords of men who had gathered on the coast
of the sea,—look at him now in an anchorite’s
dress. Valiant in battle Nakula vanquished single-handed
the kings who ruled the regions towards the west,—and
he now walks about the wood, subsisting on fruit and
roots, with a matted mass of hair on the head, and
his body besmeared all over with dirt. This daughter
of a king, who is a great soldier when mounted on
a car, took her rise from beneath the altar, during
the pomp of sacrificial rites. She hath been
always accustomed to a life of happiness; how is she
now enduring this exceedingly miserable life in this
wood! And the son of the god of virtue,—virtue
which stands at the head of all the three pursuits
of life—and the son of the wind-god and
also the son of the lord of celestials, and those two
sons of the celestial physicians,—being
the sons of all those gods and always accustomed to
a life of happiness, how are they living in this wood,
deprived of all comforts? When the son of Virtue
met with defeat and when his wife, his brothers, his
followers, and himself were all driven forth, and
Duryodhana began to flourish, why did not the earth
subside with all its hills?’”