`So Yudhishthira and Sakuni sat down to play, and whatever
Yudhishthira laid as stakes, Duryodhana laid something of equal
value; but Yudhishthira lost every game. He first lost a very
beautiful pearl; next a thousand bags, each containing a thousand
pieces of gold; next a piece of gold so pure that it was as soft
as wax; next a chariot set with jewels and hung all round with
golden bells; next a thousand war elephants with golden howdahs
set with diamonds; next a lakh of slaves all dressed in good
garments; next a lakh of beautiful slave girls, adorned from head
to foot with golden ornaments; next all the remainder of his
goods; next all his cattle; and then the whole of his Raj,
excepting only the lands which had been granted to the
Brahmans.[17]


[17]`A lakh is a hundred thousand, and a crore is a hundred
lakhs, or ten millions. The Hindoo term might therefore have
been converted into English numerals, only that it does not seem
certain that the bards meant precisely a hundred thousand slaves,
but only a very large number. The exceptional clause in favour
of the Brahmans is very significant. When the little settlement
at Indra-prastha had been swelled by the imagination of the later
bards into an extensive Raj, the thought may have entered the
minds of the Brahmanical compilers that in losing the Raj, the
Brahmans might have lost those free lands, known as inams or
jagheers, which are frequently granted by pious Rajas for the
subsistence of Brahmans. Hence the insertion of the clause.'


`Now when Yudhishthira had lost his Raj, the Chieftains present