Renuka Desires Chitraratha and Is Cursed
Renuka, rigid in her vows, goes to bathe while her sons gather fruit. She sees King Chitraratha sporting in the water with his wives, garlanded with lotuses — and is filled with desire. She loses her chastity and her senses. When Jamadagni discovers this, he commands each of his four eldest sons to kill their mother. They refuse. In great anger, he curses them to lose their minds and behave like animals or inanimate objects.
Once, when her sons had gone to gather fruit, Renuka — rigid in her vows — went to have a bath.
She saw the king of Marttikavata there, Chitraratha by name. On seeing the prosperous king, garlanded with lotuses, sporting in the water with his wives, Renuka was filled with desire. Because of this unchaste behaviour, she lost her senses and moistened herself. Frightened, she returned to the hermitage.
But her husband got to know. He saw that she had been dislodged from her constancy and that she had lost the beauty of purity. The immensely energetic and valorous one reproached her with words of "Shame!"
Then Jamadagni's eldest son, with the name of Rumanvat, arrived — and then Sushena, Vasu and Vishvavasu, one by one. One after another, the illustrious one asked them to kill their mother. But because they were deluded and had lost their senses, they said nothing in reply.
He then cursed them in great anger. As a result of the curse, they swiftly lost their minds and began to follow the conduct of animals or birds, or that of inanimate objects. Aranyaka Parva, Chapter 413