Page:The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa (1884).djvu/180

146 having heard it, O tiger among kings, appoint that which should follow.

Sauti continued, "And king Janamejaya, having listened to the words of his ministers, afflicted with grief, began to weep. And the monarch began to squeeze his hands. And the lotus-eyed king began to exhale long and hot sighs, and shed tears with his two eyes, and shrieked aloud. And possessed with grief and sorrow, and shedding copious tears, and touching water according to the form, the monarch spake. And reflecting for a moment, as if settling something in his mind, the angry monarch, addressing all his ministers, said these words:—

'I have heard your account of my father's ascension to heaven. Now know ye what my fixed resolve is. I conceive, no time must be lost in avenging this injury upon the wretch Takshaka that hath slain my father. He hath burnt my father making Sringi only a secondary cause. From malignity alone he made Kasyapa return. If that Brahmana had arrived, my father assuredly would have lived. What would he have lost if the king had revived by the grace of Kasyapa and the precautionary measures of his ministers? From ignorance of the effects of my wrath, he prevented Kasyapa—that excellent of Brahmanas and whom he could not defeat, from coming to my father with the desire of reviving him. The act of aggression is great of the wretch Takshaka who gave wealth unto that Brahmana in order that he might not revive the king. I must now avenge on my father's enemy to please myself, the Rishi Utanka, and ye all.

And so ends the fiftieth Section in the Astika of the Adi Parva.

 

( Astika Parva continued. )

Sauti said, "King Janamejaya having said so, his ministers expressed their approbation. And the monarch then expressed his determination of performing a Snake-sacrifice. And the lord of the Earth—that tiger of the Bharata race— 