Yudhi-sthira celebrated his accession to the throne by the performance of the great sacrifice, which was celebrated with the utmost splendor. After several years the unhappy Dhrita-rashtra retired with his wife to a jungle on the banks of the Ganges, leaving Yudhi-sthira in possession of the kingdom. There the Pandavas visited him, and talked over the friends who had fallen in the great war. One evening the sage Vyasa instructed them to bathe in the Ganges and then stand on the banks of the river. He then went into the water and prayed, and coming out stood by Yudhi-sthira and called the names of all those persons who had been slain at Kuruk-shetra. Immediately the water began to foam and boil, and to the great surprise and terror of all, the warriors lost in the great battle appeared in their chariots, at perfect peace with one another, and cleansed of all earthly stain. Then the living were happy with the dead; long separated families were once more united, and the hearts that had been desolate for fifteen long years were again filled with joy. The night sped quickly by in tender conversation, and when morning came, all the dead mounted into their chariots and disappeared. Those who had come to meet them prepared to leave the river, but with the permission of Vyasa, the widows drowned themselves that they might rejoin their husbands.
Not long after his return to Hastinapur, Yudhi-sthira heard that the old Raja and his wife had lost their lives in a jungle-fire; and soon after this, tidings came to him of the destruction of the city of the Yadavas, the capital of Krishna, in punishment for the dissipation of its inhabitants.
Yudhi-sthira's reign of thirty-six years had been a succession of gloomy events, and he began to grow weary of earth and to long for the blessings promised above. He therefore determined to make the long and weary pilgrimage to Heaven without waiting for death. According to the Mahâ-Bhârata, the earth was divided into seven concentric rings, each of which was surrounded by an ocean or belt separating it from the next annular continent. The first ocean was of salt water; the second, of the juice of the sugar-cane; the third, of wine; the fourth, of clarified butter; the fifth, of curdled milk; the sixth, of sweet milk; the seventh, of fresh water. In the centre of this vast annular system Mount Meru rose to the height of sixty-four thousand miles.