Janamejaya and Vyasa

With the great sage Vyasa properly honored before him, King Janamejaya asks the question that will summon the entire epic into being: what caused the catastrophic war between his ancestors, the Kurus and the Pandavas? Vyasa instructs his disciple to tell it.

The sage Vyasa, author of the epic, hears that King Janamejaya is performing a great snake-sacrifice and goes to the assembly. The king, overjoyed, receives his ancestor with the highest honors, offering him a golden seat and ritual worship.

Vaishampayana begins the detailed tale: Gandhari, granted a boon for a hundred sons, endures a two-year pregnancy before delivering a mass of flesh. The sage Vyasa intervenes, dividing the flesh into parts that become the Kauravas, with the first-born Duryodhana arriving amid terrible omens that the blind king chooses to ignore.