Gaya

Yudhishthira grieves that those who abandon dharma sometimes prosper. Lomasha answers him not with comfort but with a warning: prosperity without dharma is a slow poison. He traces the chain of destruction — insolence to vanity to anger to shamelessness to ruin — and tells Yudhishthira that the path to lasting prosperity runs through tirthas, austerities, and the example of the righteous kings who came before him.

A learned brahmana named Shamatha, bound by vows and celibacy, begins to speak about Gaya, the son of Amurtarayas. He describes a sacrifice so vast that mountains of food were piled high, rivers of ghee and curd flowed freely, and the chanting of satisfied brahmanas rose to fill the heavens — leaving the gods so contented they would never accept offerings from anyone else again.