After Vyasa had gone away the blind king remarked to Sanjaya that, since “many hundreds of millions of heroic men” had assembled at Kurukshetra, he desired to know all about the countries from which they had come, for there were many nationalities represented in the two armies. Sanjaya, having been endowed with superhuman perception by the Rishi Vyasa, gave his master, the king, a long lesson in geography, which it is rather disappointing to find so largely mythical as to be of little value, except perhaps as an indication of the very imperfect geographical knowledge possessed by the authors of the “Mahabharata.” Sanjaya’s inspired description of the countries of the world abounds in mountains of gold and gems; it embraces oceans of butter, milk, curds and wine; and dwells upon such objects in nature as trees yielding fruits which measure 2,500 cubits in circumference. While revelling in these glories of sea and land, Sanjaya’s descriptive narrative does not quite overlook the causes of natural phenomena; for he, no less than the modern scientist, has his own theory of the winds. It is, we learn from him, all due to “four princely elephants adored by all.” These magnificent beasts, whose enormous proportions Sanjaya does not venture to calculate, seize with their lithe trunks the wandering winds and then breathe them over the earth. “The winds thus let out by those respiring elephants, come over the earth and, in consequence thereof, creatures draw breath and live.” In the wonderful lands pictured by the inspired geographer, the men were necessarily long-lived. Some races, indeed, were exempt from death, and there were others whose lives extended to many thousands of years. In respect to their own land of _Bharatavarsha_, where the great battle was about to be fought, Sanjaya makes some statements which seem worthy of note. He says, for example, after naming certain mountain ranges, that there are many “smaller mountains inhabited by barbarous tribes;” and he adds that “Aryas and Mlecchas, and many races mixed of the two elements, drink the waters of the following rivers, viz., magnificent Ganga, Sindhu, and Saraswati; of Godavari and Narmuda ... and that large river called Yamuna,” etc. At length the day of real battle arrived. The chiefs on both sides made their final preparations. With tall and handsome standards, borne conspicuously aloft,[95] drums beating and conchs sounding, they took up their positions on the great plain. Karna alone held aloof from the contest, resolved to take no part in it while Bhisma lived, for he was smarting under some unbearable insults received from the aged leader of the Kauravas.