cliff Sweta, ever graced with festivities held by blooming plants and
maddened Kokilas and black bees, and peacocks, and chatakas and
inhabited by tigers, and boars and buffaloes, and gavayas, and deer, and
ferocious beasts; and sacred; and lovely with blown lotuses of a hundred
and a thousand petals, and blooming lilies and blue lilies and
frequented by the celestials and the Asuras. And we also, eagerly
anxious of meeting him on his arrival have made up our minds to repair
thither. Partha of unrivalled prowess hath appointed with me, saying, "I
shall remain abroad for five years, with the object of learning military
science." In the place like unto the region of the gods, shall we behold
the wielder of Gandiva arrive after having obtained the weapons.' Having
said this, the Pandava summoned the Brahmanas, and the sons of Pritha
having gone round the ascetics of rigid austerities and thereby pleased
them, informed them of the matter mentioned above. Thereupon the
Brahmanas gave their assent, saying, 'This shall be attended by
prosperity and welfare. O foremost of the Bharatas, these troubles shall
result in happiness. O pious one, gaining the earth by the Kshatriya
virtue, thou shall govern it.' Then in obedience to these words of the
ascetics, that represser of foes, Yudhishthira, set out with his
brothers and those Brahmanas, followed by the Rakshasa and protected by
Lomasa. And that one of mighty energy, and of staunch vows, with his
brothers, at places went on foot and at others were carried by the
Rakshasas. Then king Yudhishthira, apprehending many troubles, proceeded
towards the north abounding in lions and tigers and elephants. And
beholding on the way the mountain Mainaka and the base of the
Gandhamadana and that rocky mass Sweta and many a crystal rivulet higher
and higher up the mountain, he reached on the seventeenth day the sacred
slopes of the Himalayas. And, O king, not far from the Gandhamadana,
Pandu's son beheld on the sacred slopes of the Himavan covered with
various trees and creepers the holy hermitage of Vrishaparva surrounded