The strife between the cousins ultimately led to the destruction of the Kaurava in a great war, described in the Mahabharata.
These legends show customs of ancient India, some of which are still in force. As one of these still recognised, Menu, regarding the choice of a husband, enjoins parents to select a handsome son-in-law ; and adds, Three years let a damsel wait, though she be marriageable, but after that term let her choose for herself a husband of equal rank.' But in the days of the Pandu, one mode of selecting a husband was the Swayamvara or self-choice, where a girl chose her own husband. In the Mahabharata, the cases are mentioned of Panda with Pritha, Yudishthra with Devika, Sahadeva with Vijaya, Sivi and Devaki, Nala and Damayanti, Draupadi and Arjuna. Menu describes eight modes of marriage; viz. Brahma, Deva, Arsha, Prajapatya, Asura, Gandharva, Rakshasa, and the eighth and worst., Paisacha ; the first six for a Brahman, the four last for a warrior, and the same four, the Rakshasa excepted, for the third and fourth of the Hindu castes.
The practice of a relative raising children for a deceased childless relative is sanctioned by Menu, who says: On failure of issue by the husband, the desired offspring may be procreated either by his brother or some other near relative, called Sspinda, on the wife, who had been duly author ized.' Pandu, also, when lamenting his childless
ness, says to Pritha, ' In distress men desire a son from their oldest brother-in-law.' The Gujar race, many of the Jat clans, and others in the north of India, still take to wife the widow of a deceased brother by the Karao cere mony. It is still a popular Hindu belief that the gods visit women. According to the legend, Kunti was the sister of a prince of Mathura, who was the father of Beni and Baldiva, the Indian Hercules (Ilericula). Kunti, in consequence of the sins of the ancestors of herself and her husband, was doomed to experience the greatest curse that can befall a Hindu female, sterility. However, by a charm, she enticed the gods to her bed. Thus, ass Colonel Tod, she had by Dharmarnja (Yama, or the Minos of the Greeks), Yudislithra ; by Pavana (Eulus), Bhima ; by Indra (Jupiter Ccelus), Arjuna ; and Madri had Nakula and Sahadeva by Aswini Kumara (the Hindu Escu lapius, or the sons of Surya, the twins of the Hindu zodiac).—Cunainghane's Ancient Geog. ; Garrett ; 3Iahabharata in Wheeler's Hist. of India, p. 228; Westminster Review, April 1868; Tod's Rajasthan, i. p. 31 ; Cole.'s Myth. Hind. p. 248.