But where were Draupadi and the gallant princes, her husbands?
Yudhi-sthira could see them nowhere, and he questioned only to learn that
they were in hell. His determination was quickly taken. There could be no
heaven for him unless his brothers and their wife could share it with him.
He demanded to be shown the path to hell, to enter which he walked over
razors, and trod under foot mangled human forms. But joy of joys! The
lotus-eyed Draupadi called to him, and his brothers cried that his
presence in hell brought a soothing breeze that gave relief to all the
tortured souls.
Yudhi-sthira's self-sacrifice sufficiently tested, the gods proclaimed
that it was all but an illusion shown to make him enjoy the more, by
contrast, the blisses of heaven. The king Yudhi-sthira then bathed in the
great river flowing through three worlds, and, washed from all sins and
soils, went up, hand in hand with the gods, to his brothers, the Pandavas,
and
"Lotus-eyed and loveliest Draupadi,
Waiting to greet him, gladdening and glad."
SELECTIONS FROM THE MAHA-BHARATA.
SAVITRI, OR LOVE AND DEATH.
The beautiful princess Savitri of her own choice wedded the prince
Satyavan, son of a blind and exiled king, although she knew that he was
doomed by the gods to die within a year. When the year was almost gone,
she sat for several days beneath a great tree, abstaining from food and
drink, and imploring the gods to save him from death.
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