Mackenzie, Donald Alexander: Indian myth and legend: with illustrations by Warwick Goble and numerous monochrome plates (London, 1913)

FIRST EXILE OF THE PANDAVAS 199

depart unto the city of Varanavartha1 and dwell there;
when they have gone no one will speak to thee regarding
this matter."

Dhritarashtra listened to his son and followed his
counsel. He commanded Yudhishthira to depart with
his brethren to the city of Varanavartha, rich in jewels
and gold, to dwell there until he recalled them. Accord-
ingly the Pandava brethren bade farewell to Dhritarashtra
and left Hastinapur, taking with them their mother, the
widowed queen Pritha, and went towards the city of
Varanavartha. The people of Hastinapur mourned for
them greatly.

Ere they departed, Vidura spoke to them in secret,
bidding them to be aware of the perils of fire. He
repeated a verse to Yudhishthira and said: "Put thy
trust in the man who will recite these words unto thee;
he will be thy deliverer."

Now Duryodhana had plotted with Shakuni, the
brother of Queen Gandhari, to accomplish the destruction
of his kinsmen. Then their ally, Kanika the Brahman, said
in secret to Dhritarashtra: "When thine enemy is in thy
power, destroy him by whatever means is at thy disposal,
in secret or openly. Show him no mercy, nor give him
thy protection. If thy son, or brother, or kinsman, or
thy father even, should become thine enemy, do not
hesitate to slay if thou wouldst have prosperity. Let
him be overcome either by spells, or by curses, or by
deception, or by payment of money. Do not forget
thine enemy, even although thou mayst disdain him."

The maharajah lent a willing ear thereafter to the
counsel of his son, whom, in his secret heart, he favoured
most.

^ Allahabad, then probably a frontier town of the area of Arys-a control, pronounced
Var an-a-vart"oa.