Mahabharata episode 35

 

Shaunaka said: “Tell me again in detail what King Janamejaya heard from his ministers about his father’s heavenly destination.”

 

The Suta said: “Brahmin! Listen to what Nrupati heard from his ministers about the death of Parikshit and what they told him.

 

Janamejaya said: “You know very well what my father was like and how he died.

 

After hearing everything from you about my father, I will do what is beneficial. Otherwise, nothing.”

 

The Suta said: “Hearing the words of that great king Janamejaya, the wise ministers of all religions said:

 

“Your father was a righteous man, a great man, and a protector of the people. Listen to how that great man behaved.

 

He was loyal to his own dharma and protected the people of the four castes. The king was as pious as dharma.

 

He was rich and extremely brave, protecting the goddess Prithvi. He had no hatred for anyone and no one hated him. Like Prajapati, he saw everyone as equal.

 

Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras were all engaged in their respective duties, happy and safe from the burden of the king's rule.

 

That handsome man, who took responsibility for the lives of widows, orphans and the poor, was like the moon to everyone.

 

All the people were well-fed, wealthy, truthful and brave. In the Dhanurveda, Nrupa was the disciple of Sharadwat Kripa.

 

O Janamejaya! Your father, who was the beloved of Govinda, was very successful in the world as the beloved of everyone.

 

When the Kurus were defeated, the strong son of Abhimanyu, who was born in Uttara, was called Parikshit.

 

That king, skilled in the administration of his kingdom, was endowed with all virtues, possessed of the senses of life, intelligent, and devoted to the service of the elderly.

 

Your father, endowed with the six qualities, highly intelligent, and well-versed in righteousness, ruled the people for sixty years. Then an unstoppable disaster befell him from a serpent.

After him, you, the best of men, inherited this kingdom, which had been a Kurukula for thousands of years, by your righteousness. You are the protector of all the worlds! You were anointed when you were still a boy.”

 

Janamejaya said: “No king was born in my family who did not do what was good for the people or what they wanted. Especially my ancestors were great.

 

How, then, did my father come to the point of death? Explain to me. I want to hear it properly.”

 

Suta said: “When the king had thus commanded, the ministers reported everything to the beloved king Naradhipa.

 

“O king! Your father, who was a great archer in war, like the great Pandu, entrusted us with everything without neglecting any of the royal duties.

 

Once he shot an animal roaming in the forest with an arrow, and taking his sword, bow and arrows, he pursued the animal on foot, which he had killed. But your father never found that animal.

 

He was an old man of sixty years, tired and exhausted from hunger and thirst, and he saw a sage in that great forest.

 

At that time, king asked the sage who was observing a vow of silence. Despite asking him again and again, the sage did not give any answer.

 

The king, who was suffering from hunger and thirst, became angry when he saw the sage sitting quietly and unmoving, observing a vow of silence.

 

Not knowing that the sage was observing a vow of silence, your father the king insulted him in a fit of anger.

 

The king lifted the serpent that had fallen dead on the ground with the tip of his bow and placed it on the shoulders of that pure soul.

 

However, that genius did not utter a single word, good or bad. He stood there carrying the serpent on his shoulders.”

 

This is the forty-fifth chapter of the Adiparva, Astikaparva, of the Sri Mahabharata.