Mandhata

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.

The speaker declares that the twins, Bhimasena, Krishna, and all of them will go together — lean and extremely ascetic — to the sacred stream of Indra, where Dhata, Vidhata, and Varuna ascended. The group is committed to journeying to Mount Archika and the Yamuna, where many sacrifices have been performed and which banishes fear of sin.

King Yuvanashva, desperate for an heir, drinks the consecrated water meant for his queen — and the sage Bhargava declares that the king himself will give birth. A hundred years later, a son emerges from Yuvanashva's side, and the god Indra himself names the child Mandhata.