Shringi

Shringi, a powerful but hot-tempered young sage, returns home after a divine audience. His friend Krisha greets him not with welcome, but with a taunt about his father carrying a carcass. The mockery strikes at Shringi's pride and provokes the rage that will soon be unleashed upon a king.

Shringi, the sage's son, hears a shocking rumor: his father is carrying a corpse. He demands the truth from his friend Krisha. Krisha narrates the incident—how a tired, frustrated King Parikshit placed a dead snake on the silent sage's shoulders.

Hearing how the king humiliated his silent father, Shringi’s rage ignites. He touches water and pronounces a fatal curse: within seven days, the serpent-king Takshaka will bite Parikshit dead. His father rebukes the rash act, but the words are already spoken, setting an irrevocable fate in motion.

Shringi's father expresses displeasure at his son's rash curse on the king. Shringi declares his words, even spoken in anger, can never be false. Shamika, acknowledging his son's power, accepts the curse is irrevocable but decides to warn the king out of compassion.

Shringi, the formidable son of an insulted sage, returns home to learn a king hung a dead snake on his meditating father. His instant, blazing anger crystallizes into a curse: death by snakebite in seven days.

King Janamejaya's ministers recount the full, terrible story of his father's death: a king's insult, a sage's curse, a snake's bribery, and a final, fatal bite. They urge the young king to decide what must be done.