Pandu Shoots a Mating Deer and Receives a Curse
While hunting, King Pandu shoots a stag mating with a doe. The dying stag reveals himself to be a sage and engages Pandu in a fierce debate about cruelty, timing, and dharma. His final words are not an argument, but a curse: Pandu will die the instant he unites with a loved one.
One day, in a great forest teeming with deer and beasts, King Pandu saw a sight common to the wild: a stag, the leader of its herd, mating with a doe. Pandu raised his bow. With five swift arrows decorated with golden feathers, he shot both animals. They fell together.
As the stag lay dying on the ground, still united with the doe, it began to lament in a human voice.
The stag revealed itself. It was no ordinary animal, but the immensely energetic son of a rishi, blessed with the power of austerities. He was the sage Kindama, who had assumed the form of a deer and lived peacefully in the forest with his wife, ashamed of men. He had been engaged in intercourse when the arrows struck.
"Even evil men enslaved by lust and anger," the stag said, his voice failing, "stay away from such cruel deeds. You were born in a dynasty devoted to dharma (righteousness). Overcome by lust and avarice, how have you lost all your reason?"
Pandu was unmoved. He argued from the dharma of kings. "In dealing with deer, kings behave no differently from enemies; they kill them. Deer can be killed openly and through trickery. That is the dharma of kings." He cited the sage Agastya, who once hunted deer to offer at a sacrifice. "According to Agastya's actions, the likes of you are offerings at sacrifices."
The stag countered: "Earlier, they never unleashed arrows without considering preparedness. There is a time for this, and killing at such times is praised."
Pandu's reply was blunt: "It is known that killing occurs, whether prepared or unprepared, through different means—strength and sharp arrows. O deer! Why are you blaming me?"
The debate shifted. "I do not blame you for killing a deer or for causing me injury," the stag said. "But instead of performing such a cruel act, you should have waited until my act of intercourse was complete. This is a time that is for the welfare of all beings and desired by all beings. Which learned one will kill a deer engaged in intercourse in the forest? You have rendered futile my attempt to obtain offspring."
He condemned the act as unworthy of Pandu's lineage, destructive to fame and heaven, and against dharma. Then he turned from argument to prophecy.
"Since you have caused injury to me, you will certainly be injured. Since you have been cruel to a helpless couple, when you are overcome through the pangs of desire, death will overtake you. I am a sage named Kindama, unparalleled in austerities... Since you killed me in the form of a deer when I was overcome by desire, you will meet with the same fate that has befallen me."
The curse was precise, a mirror of the moment of violence. "Overcome by desire, when you unite with your loved one, at that very instant, you will depart for the land of the dead. The woman with whom you unite in your last moments will also go to the land of the king of the dead... You have now brought me into grief when I was in the midst of pleasure. Like that, you will be afflicted with misery when you have just found happiness."
Having spoken, the stag — the sage Kindama — gave up his life.
Pandu stood in the forest clearing, his arrows spent, the two deer dead at his feet. In an instant, the thrill of the hunt vanished, replaced by a cold, drowning grief. The curse settled upon him, not as a future threat, but as a present and immutable law. From that moment on, the touch of desire became, for King Pandu, synonymous with death.