| YouTube Channel

राजन्यमहाभाग्य (rAjanyamahAbhAgya)

 
Mahabharata
English
[Rājanyamahābhāgya(ṃ)] (“the grandeur of the kshatriyas”). § 467 (Mārk.): To the horse-sacrifice of king Ashṭaka Vaiśvāmitri all kings repaired, also his brothers Pratardana, Vasumanas, and Śibi Auśīnara. After the sacrifice was completed, these four took Nārada on their chariot and asked him who of them (as they were all blessed with long life and virtuous) should first fall from Heaven? Nārada answered that Ashṭaka should first come down, because he had praised himself for having given away thousands of kine
then Pratardana, because he, though he had given to brahmans successively the four horses yoked to his chariot, and then had drawn the chariot himself, had done so with detraction (asūyati)
then Vasumanas, because he, though he had twice at the svastivācana for the sake of a flowery chariot (pushparathasya, v. 13313, see the note of PCR., p. 601) given the chariot to Nārada, because he praised it, had not done so on a third occasion
Nārada himself would come down before Śibi, because Śibi, at the request of Vidhātṛ in the disguise of a brahman, who was desirous of trying Śibi, had cooked his son Bṛhadgarbha as food for the brahman without being angry, though the brahman meanwhile had set fire to Śibi's abode and treasury and arsenal, and when the brahman ordered Śibi himself to eat his son's body Śibi was willing to do it
but the brahman said, “Thou hast conquered wrath, there is nothing that thou canst not give to the brahmans, and withdrew his hand, and then Śibi beheld his son like a child of the gods, while the brahman disappeared
and that Śibi had not done this for fame or wealth, etc., but because this is not practised by the sinful (III, 198).