the only Prajapati and the Creator of all the worlds!  And, O irrepressible one, Jamadagnya sayeth that thou art Vishnu, and, O slayer of Madhu, that thou art (embodiment of) Sacrifice, Sacrificer and he for whom the sacrifice is performed!  And, O best of male beings, the Rishis indicate thee as Forgiveness and Truth!  Kasyapa hath said that thou art Sacrifice sprung from Truth!  O exalted one, Narada calleth thee the god of the Sadhyas, and of the Sivas, as alone the Creator and the Lord of all things.  And, O tiger among men, thou repeatedly sportest with the gods including, Brahma and Sankara and Sakra even as children sporting with their toys!  And, O exalted one, the firmament is covered by thy head, and the earth by thy feet; these worlds are as thy womb and thou art the Eternal one!  With Rishis sanctified by Vedic lore and asceticism, and whose souls have been purified by penance, and who are contented with soul-vision, thou art the best of all objects!  And, O chief of all male beings; thou art the refuge of all royal sages devoted to virtuous acts, never turning their backs on the field of the battle, and possessed of every accomplishment!  Thou art the Lord of all, thou art Omnipresent, thou art the Soul of all things, and thou art the active power pervading everything!  The rulers of the several worlds, those worlds themselves, the stellar conjunctions, the ten points of the horizon, the firmament, the moon, and the sun, are all established in thee!  And, O mighty-armed one, the morality of (earthly) creatures, the immortality of the universe, are established in thee!  Thou art the Supreme lord of all creatures, celestial or human!  Therefore it is, O slayer of Madhu, that impelled by the affection thou bearest me that I will relate to thee my griefs!  O Krishna, how could one like me, the wife of Pritha’s sons, the sister of Dhrishtadyumna, and the friend of thee, be dragged to the assembly!  Alas, during my season, stained with blood, with but a single cloth on, trembling all over, and weeping, I was dragged to the court of the Kurus!  Beholding me, stained with blood in the presence of those kings in the assembly, the wicked sons of Dhritarashtra laughed at me!  O slayer of Madhu, while the sons of Pandu and the Panchalas and the Vrishnis lived, they dared express the desire of using me as their slave!  O Krishna, I am according to the ordinance, the daughter in-law of both Dhritarashtra and Bhishma!  Yet, O slayer of Madhu, they wished to make of me a slave by force!  I blame the Pandavas who are mighty and foremost in battle, for they saw (without stirring) their own wedded wife known over all the world, treated with such cruelty!  Oh, fie on the might of Bhimasena, fie on the Gandiva of Arjuna, for they, O Janardana, both suffered me to be thus disgraced by little men!  This eternal course of morality is ever followed by the virtuous—­viz., that the husband, however weak, protecteth his wedded wife!  By protecting the wife one protecteth his offspring and by protecting