overwhelmed, knew not what to do.  Their Sacrifice ceased to blaze forth.  The gods were all terrified.  Rudra then pierced the embodiment of Sacrifice with a fierce shaft in the heart.  The embodied form of Sacrifice, assuming the shape of a deer, fled away, with the god of fire.  Approaching heaven in that form, he blazed forth in beauty.  Rudra, however, O Yudhishthira, pursued him through the skies.  After Sacrifice had fled away, the gods lost their splendour.  Having lost their senses, the gods were stupefied.

Then the three-eyed Mahadeva, with his bow, broke in rage the arms of Savitri, and plucked out the eyes of Bhaga and the teeth of Pushana.  The gods then fled away, as also all the several parts of Sacrifice.  Some amongst them, reeling as they sought to fly away, fell down senseless.  The blue-throated Rudra, having agitated them thus, laughed aloud, and whirling the horn of his bow, paralysed them.  The celestials then uttered a cry.  At their command, the string of the bow broke.  The string having broken, the bow became stretched into a line.  The gods then approached the bowless god of gods and, with the embodied form of Sacrifice, sought the protection of the puissant Mahadeva and endeavoured to gratify him.

Gratified, the great god threw his wrath into the water, O king, that wrath, assuming the form of fire, is always employed in consuming that liquid element.  He then gave unto Savitri his arms, Bhaga his eyes, and Pushana his teeth.  And he also restored the Sacrifices themselves, O Pandava!  The world once more became safe and sound.  The gods assigned unto Mahadeva all the libations of clarified butter as the share of great deity.  O monarch, when Mahadeva had become angry, the whole world had thus become agitated:  when he became gratified everything became safe.  Possessed of great energy, the god Mahadeva was gratified with Ashvatthama.  It was for this that thy sons, those mighty car-warriors, could be slain by that warrior.  It was for this that many other heroes, the Pancalas, with all their followers, could be slain by him.  Thou shouldst not suffer thy mind to dwell on it.  It was not Drona’s son that accomplished that act.  It was done through the grace of Mahadeva.  Do now what should next be done.”

The end of Sauptika-parva.

The Mahabharata

of

Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

BOOK 11

Stri-parva

Translated into English Prose from the Original Sanskrit Text

by

Kisari Mohan Ganguli

[1883-1896]

Scanned and Proofed by Mantra Caitanya.  Additional proofing and formatting at sacred-texts.com, by J. B. Hare, October 2003.

1

(Jalapradanika-parva)

Om!  Having bowed down unto Narayana and Nara, the foremost of male beings, and unto the goddess Sarasvati, must the word Jaya be uttered.