having obtained it thus from Narada, recited this blessed history to a conclave consisting of all the foremost Brahmanas, O monarch.  On the occasion, again, of my dreadful encounter with Rama of Bhrigu’s race (on the field of Kurukshetra), the celestial Vasus, O king, recited this history to me.[1943] Asked by thee, O foremost of righteous men, I have recited this history that is excellent and sacred and fraught with great merit.  Thou hadst asked me about that constitutes the highest duty, O king.  This history is my answer to thy query.  A brave man he was, O monarch, that betook himself to the practice of the Unccha vow in this way, without expectation of any fruit.  Firmly resolved, that Brahmana, instructed, by the chief of Nagas in this way about his duty, betook himself to the practice of Yama and Niyama, and subsisting the while upon such food as was allowed by the Unccha vow, proceeded to another forest.’”

The end of Santi Parva.

FOOTNOTES

1.  Literally, the period of impurity.  The period of mourning is the period of impurity, according to the Hindu scriptures.  By performing the Sraddha rite, one becomes pure again.  Till then, one can perform no religious rites.

2.  Literally, “shall not appear to thee by inward light.”

3.  The meaning is this, “This weapon shall not dwell with thee up to thy last moments.  Thou shalt forget it or it shall not appear at thy bidding, when thy death becomes nigh, though at other times, thou mayst be master of it.”

4.  The Kurus, our foes, having fallen in battle, have all gone to heaven, while grief has become our lot.

5.  Sanjata Valaratnesu is the true reading.

6.  The Bombay reading Jayaphalam is correct.  The Bengal reading Jammaphalam, however, is not unmeaning.

7.  What Yudhishthira says here is this:  all the warriors that have been slain in this battle have perished, they have not attained to heaven; if, indeed, heaven has been theirs, then the slayers too would obtain heaven, the scriptural ordinance having said so.  It is impossible, however, too suppose that men of wrath who have done such wicked deeds should obtain such regions of bliss hereafter.

8.  Pairs of opposites, such as heat and cold, joy and grief, etc.  Comp.  Gita.

9.  Because wealth enables its possessor to practise the rites of religion.

10.  The sense is that when I will not wrong the denizens of even the woods, there is little chance of my wronging men of the world.

11.  There is a class of recluses who support life by gathering the fallen fruits of trees.  Taking the tree for a living person, they walk under its shade and beg of it its fruits.  Those fruits that fall down on such occasions are regarded as the alms granted by the tree to its mendicant guest.

12.  All the possessions of a man depend upon the acts of a previous life.  Wives, children and kinsmen, therefore, as agents of happiness or the reverse, depend upon one’s past acts.  They are effects of pre-existing causes.  Then again, they may be causes of effects to be manifested in the next life, for their acts also are supposed to affect the next life of him to whom they belong.