Note 222 — Chapter X · Farther Observations at Great Salt Lake City.

The Mahabharata thus relates the origin of the practice in India. The five princely Pandava brothers, when contending for a prize offered by the King of Drona to the most successful archer, agreed to divide it if any of them should prove the winner. Arjun, the eldest, was declared victor, and received in gift Draupadi, the king’s daughter, who thus became the joint-stock property of the whole fraternity. They lived en famille for some years at the foot of Bairath, the remains of which, or rather a Ghoorka structure on the same site, are still visible on a hill near the N.W. corner of the Dhun. (Hunting in the Himalaya, chap. vii.)