“A little while after, O Bharata, that best of monarchs, deprived of all his senses by the Rakshasa within him, beholding Saktri who had cursed him, said, ’Because thou hast pronounced on me this extraordinary curse, therefore, I shall begin my life of cannibalism by devouring thee.’  Having said this, the king immediately slew Saktri and ate him up, like a tiger eating the animal it was fond of.  Beholding Saktri thus slain and devoured, Viswamitra repeatedly urged that Rakshasa (who was within the monarch) against the other sons of Vasishtha.  Like a wrathful lion devouring small animals, that Rakshasa soon devoured the other sons of the illustrious Vasishtha that were junior to Saktri in age.  But Vasishtha, learning that all his sons had been caused to be slain by Viswamitra, patiently bore his grief like the great mountain that bears the earth.  That best of Munis, that foremost of intelligent men, was resolved rather to sacrifice his own life than exterminate (in anger) the race of Kusikas.  The illustrious Rishi threw himself down from the summit of Meru, but he descended on the stony ground as though on a heap of cotton.  And, O son of Pandu, when the illustrious one found that death did not result from that fall, he kindled a huge fire in the forest and entered it with alacrity.  But that fire, though burning brightly, consumed him not.  O slayer of foes, that blazing fire seemed to him cool.  Then the great Muni under the influence of grief, beholding the sea, tied a stony weight to his neck and threw himself into its waters.  But the waves soon cast him ashore.  At last when that Brahmana of rigid vows succeeded not in killing himself by any means, he returned, in distress of heart, to his asylum.’”

SECTION CLXXIX

(Chaitraratha Parva continued)

“The Gandharva continued, ’Beholding his asylum bereft of his children, the Muni afflicted with great grief left it again.  And in course of his wandering he saw, O Partha, a river swollen with the waters of the rainy season, sweeping away numberless trees and plants that had grown on its margin.  Beholding this, O thou of Kuru’s race, the distressed Muni thinking that he would certainly be drowned if he fell into the waters of that river, he tied himself strongly with several cords and flung himself, under the influence of grief, into the current of that mighty stream.  But, O slayer of foes, that stream soon cut those cords and cast the Rishi ashore.  And the Rishi rose from the bank, freed from the cords with which he had tied himself.  And because his cords were thus broken off by the violence of the current, the Rishi called the stream by the name of Vipasa (the cord-breaker).  For his grief the Muni could not, from that time, stay in one place; he began to wander over mountains and along rivers and lakes.  And beholding once again a river named Haimavati (flowing from Himavat) of terrible aspect and full of fierce crocodiles and