Janardana

Rama and Janardana learn of Yudhishthira's severe austerities and lead the foremost Vrishnis to visit him with their armies. They find the Pandavas lying on the ground, their bodies smeared with dirt, and Draupadi in distress. Yudhishthira offers them homage, tells them of his enemies' deeds, and reveals that Arjuna has gone to Indra for weapons — leaving the Vrishnis relieved but weeping at the sight.

After the drought and fire, the world is flooded. Markandeya wanders alone in the vast ocean, exhausted and unable to find rest. He sees a banyan tree with a divine child seated on it; the child invites him to rest inside his body. Markandeya enters the child's mouth and wanders inside for over a hundred years, seeing the entire universe — rivers, mountains, gods, and all beings.

Markandeya begins by bowing to the self-creating god, then describes the four yugas — krita, treta, dvapara, and kali — with their precise durations and sandhya periods. He then details the moral and social decay at the end of a yuga: brahmanas performing shudra work, shudras ruling as kings, falsehood everywhere, and dharma itself losing its strength.