Ixiv

essential need, so he pointed out that such a careless
use of them would set the three worlds ablaze. He
rightly feared the danger, and it was only just in time
he was able to come with Vyasa to save the universe
from the terrible fire a reckless use of these ghastly

weapons was precipitating-

When the exile of the Pandavas was at last at w
end, Narada was present at the great Council of thre&
thousand Kings before war broke out with the Kauravas,
and there he encouraged the righteous cause by telling
several stories of the inevitable humbling of the
proud and unjust. After the dreadful slaughter
of the war, Yudhisthira was overwhelmed with
remorse and felt he bad committed great sins for
the sake of an earthly kingdom; he wanted to
go to the forest as a penance, but Narada was able to
persuade him—as earlier Krishna had persuaded Arjuna
_that for a warrior a righteous war is no sin bu& the
highest duty, and that his duty as a king was to rule his
subjects justly and not evade his responsibility by selfish
retreats into spiritual asceticism. When the old king
Dhritarashtra was in exile in the forest, Narada visited
him there to console him with the promise of a high
place in Heaven, and when the blind old King died» he
went to tell the news to the Pandavas that they might
do him rightful honour.

Later on, he showed Yudhisthira how Duryodhana,
cleansed of his sins by a brave death on the battlefield^
had attained to Heaven, and when Yudhisthira, rather
humanly, was indignant at this favour to the unrighteous