A Lunar Line mythic
ruler who serves as an illustration of how destiny cannot be avoided.
Parikshit is Arjuna's grandson, one of the five Pandava
brothers who star in the Mahabharata, the second of the two major Hindu epics.
Parikshit takes the kingdom from Arjuna's older brother,
Yudhishthira, and governs righteously for sixty years, according to legend, but
it is his death that is most remembered.
Parikshit, who enjoys hunting, stumbles upon a meditating
sage one day while following a wounded deer.
When the sage refuses to answer his questions regarding the
deer, Parikshit becomes enraged and wraps a dead snake around the sage's neck
with his bow.
The sage is blissfully ignorant of this, but his kid
discovers it when his playmates mock him.
Furious, the son swears that whomever is guilty would be fatally
bitten by the huge snake Takshaka within seven days.
When the son realizes that the king is to blame, he repents
of his curse.
Parikshit takes all precaution he can to avert his destiny.
He constructs a home on top of a massive pillar, has
everything brought into the house thoroughly checked, and surrounds himself
with snakebite doctors.
The king starts to relax his vigilance after six days
without incident.
As the seventh day draws to a close, Takshaka disguises
himself as a worm in a piece of fruit, transforms into his true form when the
fruit is sliced open, and bites and kills the king.
