Verse 14

¹⁴Told this by the gods, king, the revered self-born one went to the hermitage of the Daitya lord, with Bhrgu and Daksa and the rest around him. ¹⁵He did not see him: he was hidden under an anthill and grass and bamboo, overrun by ants, his fat and skin and flesh and blood eaten away. ¹⁶He was scorching the worlds with his austerity like the sun behind a cloud. Making him out, the one whose mount is a swan was astonished, and said to him with a laugh: ¹⁷Get up, get up, good fortune to you. You have come through your austerity, son of Kasyapa. I who give boons have come. Choose the boon you want. ¹⁸I have seen this in you, a great wonder, this hardness of heart: that though the biting things have eaten your body, your breath still lies in your bones.

¹⁹The sages of old did not do this, and later ones will not. Who could hold his breath without water for a hundred years of the gods?