Nahusha

Yudhishthira is tormented: brahmanas have followed him into exile, but he has nothing to give them. He cannot abandon them, yet he cannot sustain them. He goes to his priest Dhoumya and asks what the right course of action is.

The gods, having received Vishnu's counsel and Parameshthi's leave, arrive at Agastya's hermitage. There they find the sage blazing with energy, worshipped by rishis. They recite his past deeds — subduing the tyrant Nahusha, commanding the mountain Vindhya to stop its growth, and protecting the worlds from darkness — before formally petitioning him for a boon.

Lomasa begins a tour of the sacred region of Kashmira, pointing out holy lakes, mountains, and hermitages to Yudhishthira. He recounts the story of King Ushinara's sacrifice — a test by Indra and Agni that would determine whether a mortal king could equal the gods.

Coiled by the serpent Nahusha and unable to move, Bhima accepts his fate without anger — but his mind turns not to his own death, but to the sorrow it will bring his brothers and his mother, who will lose their protector in this wilderness.

The serpent who has seized Bhima declares that he has been hungry for a long time — but before devouring his descendant, he tells the story of how he, the great king Nahusha, fell from Indra's throne and became a snake, cursed by a sage for his arrogance.

A serpent seizes Bhima and will not let him go. When Yudhishthira comes looking for his brother, the serpent speaks — and reveals that he is no ordinary creature, but the former king Nahusha, Yudhishthira's own ancestor, fallen from the lordship of the three worlds into this crawling form.

Nahusha will not release Bhima until Yudhishthira answers his question: who is a brahmana, and what should he know? Yudhishthira's answer cuts to the heart of dharma — defining a brahmana not by birth, but by conduct.

Yudhishthira asks the serpent how someone so wise could have fallen so low. The serpent answers: prosperity. He was Nahusha, once king of heaven itself — until he forced the great sage Agastya to carry his palanquin. Now he waits for the one who will free him.

Yudhishthira, searching for his missing brother Bhima, finds himself face to face with a massive serpent coiled at the mouth of a cave. The serpent does not attack. Instead, it begins to speak — about charity, truth, non-violence, and the nature of the soul. Yudhishthira, wary but curious, questions him in return.