as the people desired, and the cities and the town became highly prosperous.  Indeed as a consequence of the monarch’s acts; every affair of the kingdom, especially cattle bleeding, agriculture and trade prospered highly.  O king, during those days even robbers and cheats never spoke lies amongst themselves, nor they that were the favourites of the monarch.  There were no droughts and floods and plagues and fires and premature deaths in those days of Yudhishthira devoted to virtue.  And it was only for doing agreeable services, or for worshipping, or for offering tributes that would not impoverish, that other kings used to approach Yudhisthira (and not for hostility or battle.) The large treasure room of the king became so much filled with hoards of wealth virtuously obtained that it could not be emptied even in a hundred years.  And the son of Kunti, ascertaining the state of his treasury and the extent of his possessions, fixed his heart upon the celebration of a sacrifice.  His friends and officers, each separately and all together, approaching him said,—­’The time hath come, O exalted one, for thy sacrifice.  Let arrangements, therefore, be made without loss of time.’  While they were thus talking, Hari (Krishna), that omniscient and ancient one, that soul of the Vedas, that invincible one as described by those that have knowledge, that foremost of all lasting existences in the universe, that origin of all things, as also that in which all things come to be dissolved, that lord of the past, the future, and the present Kesava—­the slayer of Kesi, and the bulwark of all Vrishnis and the dispeller of all fear in times of distress and the smiter of all foes, having appointed Vasudeva to the command of the (Yadava) army, and bringing with him for the king Yudhishthira just a large mass of treasure; entered that excellent city of cities.  Khandava, himself surrounded by a mighty host and filling the atmosphere with the rattle of his chariot-wheels.  And Madhava, that tiger among men enhancing that limitless mass of wealth the Pandavas had by that inexhaustible ocean of gems he had brought, enhanced the sorrows of the enemies of the Pandavas.  The capital of the Bharata was gladdened by Krishna’s presence just as a dark region is rendered joyful by the sun or a region of still air by a gentle breeze.  Approaching him joyfully and receiving him with due respect, Yudhishthira enquired of his welfare.  And after Krishna had been seated at ease, that bull among men, the son of Pandu, with Dhaumya and Dwaipayana and the other sacrificial priests and with Bhima and Arjuna and the twins, addressed Krishna thus,—­