Shaibya

King Sagara, powerful but sonless, retreats to Mount Kailasa with his two wives and performs austerities so severe that Shiva himself appears before them. The god grants a boon — but the terms are strange, and the cost is hidden in plain sight.

Narada brings Sagara the news that his sixty thousand sons have been burned to ashes by Kapila's energy. Sagara steadies himself, recalling the words of Sthanu, and summons his grandson Anshuman — but before telling him about the dead, he reveals something else: he had already banished Anshuman's father, his own son Asamanja, for the welfare of the citizens. Yudhishthira asks why, and Lomasha recounts how Asamanja used to seize the infants of the city and throw them into the river.

While travelling through the forest, Jayadratha of Sindhu catches a glimpse of Draupadi and is instantly besotted — all other women seem like monkeys to him. Despite his companion Kotikashya identifying her as the queen of the five Pandavas, Jayadratha insists on going to see her and enters the empty hermitage like a wolf entering a den of lions.

Dyumatsena, his eyesight miraculously restored, finds his hermitage empty — Satyavan and Savitri have not returned. He and his wife Shaibya run through the forest, wounded and bleeding, crying out their children's names, until the forest sages bring them back and offer reasons why Satyavan must still be alive.

When Satyavan and Savitri return late at night, the rishis press Savitri for the truth behind Dyumatsena's sudden restoration of sight. She reveals everything: Narada's prophecy, Yama's arrival, her confrontation with the god of death, and the five boons she won — including her husband's life.

Markandeya continues his narration to the Pandavas, describing the morning after Savitri's trials. The subjects of Shalva arrive to recall Dyumatsena — their enemy has been slain by his own minister, and they want him back as king. Dyumatsena, now with sight restored, departs for the city with his family, and Savitri later bears a hundred sons and has a hundred brothers.