The Valorous One Divides and Distributes Mada
Mada — the intoxicating force of excess — had been created before, and now it had returned. The valorous one took it and divided it into four parts: drinks, women, gambling, and hunting. Having thrown Mada away, he satisfied Indra and the Ashvins with soma, performed a sacrifice for the king, and became famous throughout the worlds.
Mada had been created before — the intoxicating force of pride and excess that drives men to ruin. It had been born from the churning of the ocean, a gift that could destroy anyone who consumed it without restraint. And now it had returned, present again, needing to be dealt with.
The valorous one — the one who had faced it before — did not hesitate. He took Mada and divided it. He distributed it into four parts: drinks, women, gambling, and hunting. These were the forms in which Mada had earlier been created again and again — the same intoxicating forces that had brought down kings and sages across the ages. By dividing Mada into these four streams, he made it manageable, dispersing its power so that no single vessel could hold its full force.
Having thrown Mada away in this manner, he turned to the gods. He satisfied Indra with soma — the sacred drink of the immortals — and also the Ashvins, the twin horsemen of dawn, together with the other gods. Then he performed the sacrifice for the king, completing the ritual that had been intended.
Because of this act — because of his valour in confronting and dividing Mada, because of his skill in satisfying the gods — the valorous one became famous in the worlds. His name spread among the wise and the powerful. And when the sacrifice was done, he sported with his beloved Sukanya in the forest, the two of them together in the wild, far from the court and its demands.
This was the lake that now shone nearby — the place where all of this had happened. And it was to this lake, and to the tirthas (sacred waters) that surrounded it, that Yudhishthira was now being advised to go. Aranyaka Parva, Chapter 422