Verse 12

¹²He saw her running after him, having taken a shape like an outcaste woman's, her body shaking with age, wasted with consumption, her clothing blood. ¹³Her grey hair loose and flying, she was calling Stop, stop, and fouling the road with the smell of her breath, which smelt of fish. ¹⁴The thousand-eyed one went into the sky and to every quarter, king, and then quickly to the north-east, and there, king, he entered the Manasa lake. ¹⁵He lived there in the threads of a lotus stalk, getting nothing to enjoy, since fire is the messenger here, unseen within for a thousand years, thinking over how he might be let go of the brahmin's killing.

¹⁶For all that time Nahusa ruled the three heavens, strong with learning, austerity and yoga. His mind blinded by the pride of wealth and mastery, he was brought by Indra's wife to the way of beasts. ¹⁷Then, called by the word of Brahma, he went; his guilt was held off by meditation on the one who upholds what is true. The sin, its force broken by the deity of that quarter, did not get at him, guarded as he was by Visnu's wife.