The emperor of the whole world at that time was
Maharaj Parikshit. Once when he was going through the forest, he was afflicted
by severe thirst. Though he was the king of the entire world, here he was in
the midst of the forest and there was no one to fetch even a glass of water for
him. At that time he saw a sage, shamik rishi, performing penance in a hut.
Being desperate to quench his thirst, he requested the sage to give him a glass
of water. The sage was in deep trance and so he didn’t even hear the king.
Parikshit was angered due to this apparently discourteous behavior of the sage.
In his anger he put a dead snake around the neck of the sage and went away.
After some time when the son of Shamik Rishi Shringi came to know how his
father had been insulted, he pronounced a curse in Praikishit, “you will die
after seven days due to the bite of poisonous snake-bird.”
When king Parikshit was informed about the curse,
his response was highly exemplary. He was the emperor of the entire world and
he was a pure devotee of lord Krishna. And for a monor mistake on his part, a
young impudent boy had sounded his death-knell. If king, Parikshit had wanted,
he could easily have counter cursed Shringi. But far from trying to ‘get even’
with Shringi, Parikshit humbly Ganges, offered his humble obeisances to the
great sages assembled there and requested them:
Tam mopayatam pratiyantu
Vipraganga ca devi dhrta-cittam
Isedvijoparstah kuhakas taksako va
Dastv
alam gayata visnu-gathah
“o
brahmanas,just accept me as a completely surrendered soul, and let mother
Ganges, the representative of the lord, also accept me in that way, for I have
already taken the lotus feet of the lord into my heart. Let the
snake-bird----or whatever magical thing Brahmana created---bite me at once. I
only desire that you all continue singing the deeds of Lord Vishnu.”
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