Townspeople Discover Baka's Body and Question the Brahmana
The morning after Baka's death, the townspeople of Ekachakra find a horror at their gate: the rakshasa's colossal, blood-soaked corpse. Astonished and grateful, they trace the duty roster to find out whose turn it was to deliver the fatal meal.
The next morning, the people of the town came out and saw the rakshasa lying dead on the ground.
His body was wet with blood, horrible and spread out, as huge as the peak of a mountain. The sight was a superhuman feat made flesh. The news spread through Ekachakra, and in their thousands, the citizens went out — with their wives, the old, and the young — to see Baka. They were astonished. They gave offerings of gratitude to the gods for their deliverance.
Then, with the immediate shock fading, a practical question arose. They began to calculate whose turn it had been the previous day to supply the rakshasa's tribute of food and a human carrier. The duty rotated, a grim lottery that had just been won — or lost. Learning that it had been the turn of a certain Brahmana, they went to his house and questioned him.