Gandharva Narrates Vashishtha's Failed Suicide Attempts

The gandharva addressed Arjuna. He began to narrate the story of the grief-stricken sage Vashishtha, whose hermitage stood empty of his one hundred sons. Seeing the silence where his sons should have been, Vashishtha left his home again. He came to a river swollen with the new waters of the rainy season, sweeping away trees that grew along its banks. The miserable sage thought this water would certainly kill him. He bound himself with strong ropes and, struck with great grief, flung himself into the current. But the river tore the ropes away. Unfettered, it washed the rishi up onto the bank. Freed from the bindings, the great sage arose and gave the river a new name: Vipasha, "the unfettered." His mind, obsessed with grief, would not let him stay in any one place. He wandered to mountains, rivers, and lakes. He saw another terrible river, the Himavati, full of fierce animals. He flung himself into its waters. That best of rivers, thinking the Brahmana was fire itself, immediately fled in a hundred directions to avoid him. From that day, it came to be known as Shatadru, "the hundred-flowed." Finding himself once again on dry land, Vashishtha exclaimed that he was unable to die by his own hands. He turned back toward his hermitage. As he walked, his daughter-in-law Adrishyanti followed him. As she came near, he heard the sound of Vedic incantations, chanted with the fullness of meaning of the six angas (branches of Vedic knowledge). "Who is following me?" he asked. "I am Adrishyanti, Shakti's wife," she answered. "O illustrious one, I am austere, engaged in austerities." Vashishtha said, "O daughter, who is reciting the Vedas and their angas that I hear? It is just as I heard it from Shakti earlier." Adrishyanti said, "In my womb, there is a son begotten by Shakti. He has been there for twelve years. O sage, you have heard his recitations." Hearing this, Vashishtha was greatly delighted. Exclaiming that there was a son, he refrained from death. The unblemished sage returned, accompanied by his daughter-in-law. In the deserted forest, he found King Kalmashapada seated. The king, possessed by a rakshasa (demon), rose in anger and sought to devour him. Seeing the king of evil deeds advancing with a fearful wooden club, Adrishyanti spoke to Vashishtha in fear. "O illustrious one! This terrible rakshasa looks like death himself. Except you, no one on earth has the power to ward him off. Save me from this evil one." The gandharva's narration set the stage for the confrontation to come.