Repair ye to Khandavaprastha so
that no difference may arise again (between you and your cousins). If you
take up your quarters there no one will be able to do you any injury.
Protected by Partha (Arjuna), like the celestials by the thunderbolt,
reside ye at Khandavaprastha, taking half of the kingdom.'
"Vaisampayana continued, 'Agreeing to what Dhritarashtra said, those bulls
among men worshipping the king set out from Hastinapura. And content with
half the kingdom, they removed to Khandavaprastha, which was in
unreclaimed desert. Then those heroes of unfading splendour, viz., the
Pandavas, with Krishna at their head, arriving there, beautified the place
and made it a second heaven. And those mighty car-warriors, selecting with
Dwaipayana's assistance a sacred and auspicious region, performed certain
propitiatory ceremonies and measured out a piece of land for their city.
Then surrounded by a trench wide as the sea and by walls reaching high up
to the heavens and white as the fleecy clouds or the rays of the moon,
that foremost of cities looked resplendent like Bhogavati (the capital of
the nether kingdom) decked with the Nagas. And it stood adorned with
palatial mansions and numerous gates, each furnished with a couple of
panels resembling the out-stretched wings of Garuda. And it was protected
with gateways looking like the clouds and high as the Mandara mountains.
And well-furnished with numerous weapons of attack the missiles of the
foes could not make slightest impression on them.
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