consequence of the monarch's acts every affair of the kingdom, especially
cattle breeding, agriculture and trade prospered highly. O king, during
those days even robbers and cheats never spoke lies amongst themselves,
nor they that were the favourites of the monarch. There were no droughts
and floods and plagues and fires and premature deaths in those days of
Yudhishthira devoted to virtue. And it was only for doing agreeable
services, or for worshipping, or for offering tributes that would not
impoverish, that other kings used to approach Yudhisthira (and not for
hostility or battle.) The large treasure room of the king became so much
filled with hoards of wealth virtuously obtained that it could not be
emptied even in a hundred years. And the son of Kunti, ascertaining the
state of his treasury and the extent of his possessions, fixed his heart
upon the celebration of a sacrifice. His friends and officers, each
separately and all together, approaching him said,--'The time hath come, O
exalted one, for thy sacrifice. Let arrangements, therefore, be made
without loss of time.' While they were thus talking, Hari (Krishna), that
omniscient and ancient one, that soul of the Vedas, that invincible one as
described by those that have knowledge, that foremost of all lasting
existences in the universe, that origin of all things, as also that in
which all things come to be dissolved, that lord of the past, the future,
and the present Kesava--the slayer of Kesi, and the bulwark of all
Vrishnis and the dispeller of all fear in times of distress and the smiter
of all foes, having appointed Vasudeva to the command of the (Yadava) army,
and bringing with him for the king Yudhishthira just a large mass of
treasure; entered that excellent city of cities. Khandava, himself
surrounded by a mighty host and filling the atmosphere with the rattle of
his chariot-wheels. And Madhava, that tiger among men enhancing that
limitless mass of wealth the Pandavas had by that inexhaustible ocean of
gems he had brought, enhanced the sorrows of the enemies of the Pandavas.
The capital of the Bharata was gladdened by Krishna's presence just as a