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बिसस्तैन्योपाख्यान (bisastainyopAkhyAna)

 
Mahabharata
English
[Bisastainyopākhyāna]
(“the episode relating to the theft of the lotus-stalks”). § 750b (Ānuśāsanik.): Bhīshma said: The seven Ṛ. Kaśyapa, etc. (), and Arundhatī together had one single maidservant, Gaṇḍā, who was married to the śūdra Paśusakha. While they, in days of old, practised penances, preparing themselves for (upaśikshanto) Brahmaloka by yoga meditation (samādhinā), there occurred a severe drought
Śibi's son Śaibya had in former times given away a son of his as the sacrificial present to the ṛtvijes
that prince now died of starvation
impelled by hunger, the Ṛshis cooked his body in a vessel. King Śaibya Vṛshādarbhi came and offered to give them kine, etc., but they refused it: that acceptance of gifts from a king was poison
they left the spot abandoning that flesh. The king sent his ministers with figs, some of which were filled with gold
but Atri, finding them heavy, refused to take them
and so did all of them (), and left the spot. Filled with wrath, Vṛshādarbhi, after having observed penances, poured libations into the fire accompanied by mantras
from the fire a hag (kṛtyā) sprang forth, whom he called Yātudhānī
he ordered her to slay the Ṛshis, etc., having ascertained their names. While Ṛ. roved within the forest, subsisting upon fruits and roots, they saw a well-nourished mendicant [called further below Śunaḥsakha]
with a dog in good condition
Arundhatī pointed him out to them, and each of them explained the superior condition of this mendicant with reference to one of the points in which he was better situated than they(). The wandering mendicant approached them and touched their hand according to custom. One day they beheld a beautiful lake overgrown with lotuses, and desired to gather some lotus-stalks
urged by Vṛshādarbhi, Yātudhānī, who guarded the lake, would know their names before they took the stalks
Atri knew that she stood there in order to slay them
but they all told their names with their etymological explanations ()
at each explanation Yātudhānī declared that she did not understand it, [in some cases]
“in consequence of the inflections which the roots had undergone”
Śunaḥsakha calls himself Śunaḥsakha-sakhi, and as Yātudhānī wishes to hear the name once more in order to understand it, he struck her head with his triple stick, at which she was consumed to ashes. Having gathered lotus-stalks, they once more plunged into the lake in order to offer oblations of water to the Pitṛs. As they came up, the stalks were nowhere to be seen. They took, each of them, oaths to their innocence()
but the oath of Śunaḥsakha was “no oath at all, ” and he confessed that he had stolen the stalks from desire of testing them
he turned out to be Indra, who had come to test them, and told them the whole matter about Yātudhānī. They then ascended to heaven in the company of Indra himself* (XIII, 93).