with his prodigious strength, wiped out thousands of the enemy at one
stroke, and Arjuna did the same with his swift arrows. Nor were the
Kauravas to be despised. Hundreds of thousands of the Pandavas' followers
fell, and the heroic brothers were themselves struck by many arrows.

Early in the battle the old Bhishma was pierced by so many arrows that,
falling from his chariot, he rested upon their points as on a couch, and
lay there living by his own desire, until long after the battle.

After eighteen days of slaughter, during which the field reeked with blood
and night was made horrible by the cries of the jackals and other beasts
of prey that devoured the bodies of the dead, the Kauravas were all slain,
and the five Pandavas, reconciled to the blind Raja, accompanied him back
to Hastinapur, where Yudhi-sthira was crowned Raja, although the Raj was
still nominally under the rule of his old uncle.

Yudhi-sthira celebrated his accession to the throne by the performance of
the great sacrifice, which was celebrated with the utmost splendor. After
several years the unhappy Dhrita-rashtra retired with his wife to a jungle
on the banks of the Ganges, leaving Yudhi-sthira in possession of the
kingdom. There the Pandavas visited him, and talked over the friends who
had fallen in the great war. One evening the sage Vyasa instructed them to
bathe in the Ganges and then stand on the banks of the river. He then went
into the water and prayed, and coming out stood by Yudhi-sthira and called
the names of all those persons who had been slain at Kuruk-shetra.
Immediately the water began to foam and boil, and to the great surprise
and terror of all, the warriors lost in the great battle appeared in their
chariots, at perfect peace with one another, and cleansed of all earthly
stain. Then the living were happy with the dead; long separated families
were once more united, and the hearts that had been desolate for fifteen