Yudhishthira, firmly seated on his throne, determined to signalize his reign and paramount sovereignty, by the imposing and solemn rites of Asvamedha[[20]] and Rajasuya.
The Asvamedha.
The ‘Steed of Sacrifice’ was liberated under Arjuna’s care, having wandered whither he listed for twelve months; and none daring to accept this challenge of supremacy, he was reconducted to Indraprastha, where, in the meanwhile, the hall of sacrifice was prepared, and all the princes of the land were summoned to attend.
The hearts of the Kurus[[21]] burned with envy at the assumption of supremacy by the Pandus, for the Prince of Hastinapura’s office was to serve out the sacred food [50].
The rivalry between the races burst forth afresh; but Duryodhana, who so often failed in his schemes against the safety of his antagonists, determined to make the virtue of Yudhishthira the instrument of his success. He availed himself of the national propensity for play, in which the Rajput continues to preserve his Scythic[[22]] resemblance. Yudhishthira fell into the snare prepared for him. He lost his kingdom, his wife, and even his personal liberty and that of his brothers, for twelve years, and became an exile from the plains of the Yamuna.
The traditional history of these wanderers during the term of probation, their many lurking places now sacred, the return to their ancestral abodes, and the grand battle (Mahabharata) which ensued, form highly interesting episodes in the legends of Hindu antiquity.
To decide this civil strife, every tribe and chief of fame, from the Caucasus to the ocean, assembled on Kurukshetra, the field on which the empire of India has since more than once been contested[[23]] and lost.
This combat was fatal to the dominant influence of the “fifty-six tribes of Yadu.” On each of its eighteen days’ combat, myriads were slain; for “the father knew not the son, nor the disciple his preceptor.”
Victory brought no happiness to Yudhishthira. The slaughter of his friends disgusted him with the world, and he determined to withdraw from it; previously performing, at Hastinapura, funeral rites for Duryodhana (slain by the hands of Bhima), whose ambition and bad faith had originated this exterminating war. “Having regained his kingdom, he proclaimed a new era, and placing on the throne of Indraprastha, Parikshita, grandson to Arjuna, retired to Dwarka with Krishna and Baldeva: and since the war to the period of writing, 4636 years have elapsed.”[[24]]
Yudhishthira, Baldeva, and Krishna, having retired with the wreck of this ill-fated struggle to Dwarka, the two former had soon to lament the death of Krishna, slain by one of the aboriginal tribes of Bhils; against whom, from their shattered condition, they were unable to contend. After this event, Yudhishthira, with [51] Baldeva and a few followers, entirely withdrew from India, and emigrating northwards, by Sind, to the Himalayan mountains, are there abandoned by Hindu traditional history, and are supposed to have perished in the snows.[[25]]