Chapter 112 - The Creation of Barren Land

[Sanskrit text for this chapter is available]

Suta said:

1-2. After the distressed and dejected king accompanied by his attendants had gone back to his abode, a few days elapsed. Then the sixty-eight excellent Brāhmaṇas reached the place utterly exhausted. They were emaciated in their limbs and had their faces turned greyish with dust. They had to come on foot.

3. They saw their wives bedecked in divine ornaments and dressed in divine garments as though they were queens.

4-6. They were very hungry. They asked them in great surprise, “O sinful ladies, what is this? What is this? Your bodies are rendered incongruous (as wives of asceties)?

How did you receive these costly ornaments and garments? Certainly, the loss of our ability of aerial movement could not have been caused by anything else.

O despicable women, excepting this aberration of yours, there can not be any other cause.”

Thereupon the wives of those sages narrated all the events.

7. They told them how Damayantī, the beloved wife and queen of the king, came there. O Brāhmaṇas, they told them how the ornaments were distributed by her.

8. They told them how the noble-souled (four) Brāhmaṇas cursed her.

On hearing those censurable words, the sages became angry. The acceptance of the gift from the king was blameworthy especially to the sages.

9. With great anger they began to shake uncontrollably. They took up water to destroy the king and his kingdom.

10. “Our aerial movement has been destroyed by this evil king of sinful nature. He has tempted our simple and straight forward wives and brought his ornaments to them and therefore this adverse situation has occurred.”

Sūta said:

11. While those sages were about to curse the king, the wives spoke to them angrily:

12. “O excellent Brāhmaṇas, no curse should be uttered against the king. Our words should be listened to unreservedly.

13. All of us were adorned by the wife of the leading king by means of excellent garments and divine ornaments with her mind sanctified with faith.

14. All along we have been staying in your houses along with the defect of poverty. We are emaciated and feeble. We never had any pleasure possible in human life.

15. To those who are engaged in penance there exists only the other world. They will not have even the slightest of human pleasure and benefit.

16. This world has been proclaimed for those others who are engrossed in worldly pleasures. They are base and wicked with their minds solely attached to the pleasures here.

17. In the case of those householders with the minds turned towards their duties this world as well as the other world are both assured. There is no doubt about it.

18. We shall undoubtedly resort to the excellent stage of the householders and thereby achieve the best of both the worlds.

19-20. That is why persons with cogent reasoning say that the household (i.e. householder’s stage) is very beautiful.

As for you, do accept the gift of the plots of land from the king as well as all desired means of sustenance. Then look after your sons and grandsons and their welfare. See to the happiness of your daughters and kinsmen in particular.

21. If you are not inclined to do as we have suggested, we shall all give up our lives unhesitatingly.

22. Afflicted by the sin of murdering your wives you will fall into the grave hell of Raurva certainly.”

23. On hearing their words, the sages let fall the water they had held in their hands for the purpose of cursing the king.

24. Thereupon, O excellent Brāhmaṇas, that portion of the ground became burnt by that water. It became an arid land. It is visible even today.

25. Seeds sown there do not grow at all. Further, a bird or worm that dies there is not reborn.

26-27. Not even grass nor an animal survives there. All the more so in the case of a devout man! One who faithfully performs a Śrāddha in the month of Phālguna on the Full-Moon day and on a Sunday will redeem his Pitṛs even if they had fallen into a terrible Naraka due to their own action.