In this, the tenth book of the great Indian epic, the Mahabharata, the war has finally ended in victory for the Pandavas. One of the vanquished, Asvatthaman, carries out his threat to massacre the victorious army as it sleeps, and then unleashes a weapon of total destruction. But now the great god, Krsna, makes an extraordinary intervention, and a new hope for the social and cosmic order emerges in the form of an unborn child.