Page:Tales from the Indian Epics.djvu/42

36 King Parikshit the son of Abhimanyu the son of Arjuna the Bharata. I am looking for a deer that I have wounded. Tell me, reverend Sir, if it has passed this way." But the rishi Samika had taken a vow of silence and, although the king repeated his question, the rishi would not answer him. King Parikshit grew angry and picking up a dead snake with his bow placed it in derision round Samika's neck. The rishi said nothing and King Parikshit, repenting of his deed, went back to his own city. After some days Samika's son Sringi returned to the hermitage and, seeing a dead snake on his father's shoulders, learnt from a friend named Krishna the outrage that Parikshit had done to Samika. Then Sringi, who also was a great rishi, grew angry with King Parikshit and cursed him saying, "O wicked king, because you insulted my father, Takshaka the snake prince will bite and kill you within seven days." Sringi's father Samika rebuked his son for the curse and bade him take it back. But Sringi would not listen to his father nor relent. So Samika sent word by a disciple named Gaurmukha to King Parikshit warning him of Sringi's curse. And King Parikshit, fearing for his life, caused a round stone pillar to be placed in the ground and on the pillar he built a palace. In the palace there were no windows and only one door. It closed so tightly that the smallest insect could not enter. And King Parikshit went into the palace so that he might pass in safety the seven days allotted to him by Sringi's curse.

On the seventh day Takshaka the snake prince left his palace under the earth to kill King Parikshit and thus fulfil the rishi Sringi's curse. Now about the same time a certain Brahman named Kashyapa, who was