SECTION CLI
(Jatugriha Parva continued)
"Vaisampayana said, 'About this time, the learned Vidura had sent into
those woods a man of pure character and much trusted by him. This person
going to where he had been directed, saw the Pandavas with their mother
in the forest employed in a certain place in measuring the depth of a
river. The design that the wicked Duryodhana had formed had been, through
his spies, known to Vidura of great intelligence, and, therefore, he had
sent that prudent person unto the Pandavas. Sent by Vidura unto them, he
showed the Pandavas on the sacred banks of the Ganga a boat with engines
and flags, constructed by trusted artificers and capable of withstanding
wind and wave and endued with the speed of the tempest or of thought. He
then addressed the Pandavas in these words to show that he had really
been sent by Vidura, 'O Yudhishthira, he said, "listen to these words the
learned Vidura had said (unto thee) as a proof of the fact that I come
from him. Neither the consumer of straw and the wood nor the drier of dew
ever burneth the inmates of a hole in the forest. He escapeth from death
who protecteth himself knowing this, etc.' By these credentials know me
to be the person who has been truly sent by Vidura and to be also his
trusted agent. Vidura, conversant with everything, hath again said, 'O
son of Kunti, you shalt surely defeat in battle Karna, and Duryodhana
with his brothers, and Sakuni.' This boat is ready on the waters, and it
will glide pleasantly thereon, and shall certainly bear you all from
these regions!'
"Then beholding those foremost of men with their mother pensive and sad
he caused them to go into the boat that was on the Ganga, and accompanied
them himself. Addressing them again, he said, 'Vidura having smelt your
heads and embraced you (mentally), hath said again that in commencing
your auspicious journey and going alone you should never be careless.'
"Saying these words unto those heroic princes, the person sent by Vidura
took those bulls among men over to the other side of the Ganga in his
boat. And having taken them over the water and seen them all safe on the
opposite bank, he uttered the word 'Jaya' (victory) to their success and
then left them and returned to the place whence he had come.
"The illustrious Pandavas also sending through that person some message
to Vidura, began, after having crossed the Ganga, to proceed with haste
and in great secrecy.'"
--------------------END OF PARVA 1 : UPA-PARVA 151 ---------------------
