Nriga

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 Pandavas praise Markandeya for restoring Indradyumna to heaven, but Markandeya tells them of another king saved by someone greater. Devaki's son Krishna, he says, rescued rajarshi Nriga when he had descended into hell and was in distress, and returned him to heaven.