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STORIES · THE MAHĀBHĀRATA · Ādi
Jaratkāru & Āstika
Classical
The whole Mahabharata is told in the shadow of a snake sacrifice, and this is the story of how it was stopped. Sauti tells it to the sage Saunaka, and he has it from Pramati, who told it to his son Ruru.
It starts with an ascetic named Jaratkaru, who lived on air, gave up sleep, and wandered the world. He came upon his own ancestors hanging head-down in a deep hole by a rope of virana fibre, while a rat gnawed at the rope. They were sinking because their line had no children and he, their only descendant, would not marry. He agreed, but on strict terms. He would marry only a maiden with his own name, whom her family gave freely, and he would not be responsible for feeding her. He wandered, growing old, and called out three times to all creatures that anyone with a daughter should give her to him. The snakes had been watching him, and they told their king Vasuki, who brought his own sister and offered her. Jaratkaru asked her name, restated that he would not support her, and married her.
She served him well and became pregnant. One evening he slept with his head in her lap as the sun neared setting. She weighed waking him against letting his evening prayers lapse, and chose to wake him, to guard his merit. He was furious and said the sun could not have set while he slept. He reminded her of the terms, told her to tell her brother he had gone, and left, saying only that the child she carried would be a sage, equal to fire in brilliance and a master of the Vedas. She begged him not to leave her blameless. The marriage had been meant to produce a child for her family, and she feared Vasuki's anger. He went back to his penance. The text calls the child Astika in later sections.
Now the other thread. King Parikshit, ruler of the Kurus for sixty years, went hunting, shot a deer and chased it on foot, tired and hungry, into deep forest. He found a sage in a vow of silence, who did not answer when he asked about the deer. Not knowing the man was a sage, the king grew angry and hung a dead snake on the sage's shoulders with the tip of his bow. The sage did not speak or move. Parikshit's son Janamejaya later asked his ministers how his father died, and decided on revenge. His priests told him the gods had devised a snake sacrifice. A builder warned that a Brahmin would obstruct it.
The sacrifice began. Priests in dark clothes, eyes red with smoke, poured butter into the fire and called the snakes by name. The snakes cried out, tangled, and fell in by thousands, afflicted, the text says, by their mother's curse. Takshaka, the snake who had killed Parikshit, fled to Indra's palace and was promised protection. Vasuki, watching his people burn, told his sister the time had come for her marriage to pay off: her son Astika would end the sacrifice, and he asked her to send him.
Astika spoke to the king so well that Janamejaya offered him any gift. The priests objected that Takshaka had not yet arrived. They said, by scripture and fire, that he was hiding in Indra's realm. Indra arrived in his chariot with Takshaka hidden in his garment, and Janamejaya, furious, ordered Indra himself to be cast in with the snake. Indra let Takshaka go, and he was pulled down by the mantras. Just before he fell into the fire Astika named his gift: stop the sacrifice. The king offered gold, silver and cattle instead. Astika wanted none of it. The assembly told the king to grant it.
In the text, Astika had called Stay to the falling Takshaka three times, and Takshaka hung in the air. The sacrifice ended, the people celebrated and the king paid the priests handsomely. Astika went home to his mother and uncle. The snakes, grateful, offered him a boon. He asked that anyone who tells this story be safe from snakes, and they added a verse: any snake that bites someone who has spoken his name will have its hood split a hundred times.
Told by Ugraśravas → ṛṣis
Bound to
Kadrū & Vinatā origin
Uttaṅka (Paushya) origin
Where this comes from
- CE · Mahabharata, Critical Edition 1.13-53 1.13-53
- read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Adi Parva, Section XII (Ruru asks about Astika)
- read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Adi Parva, Section XIII (Jaratkaru and the hanging ancestors)
- read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Adi Parva, Section XLVI (Jaratkaru's search; Vasuki offers his sister)
- read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Adi Parva, Astika Parva continued, no section number shown (the marriage and parting)
- read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Adi Parva, Section XLIX (Parikshit and the sage)
- read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Adi Parva, Section LI (Janamejaya resolves on the sacrifice)
- read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Adi Parva, Section LIII (Takshaka seeks Indra; Vasuki's appeal)
- read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Adi Parva, Section LVI (Astika's request; Takshaka)
- read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Adi Parva, Section LVIII (the sacrifice ends; the serpents' boon)