Verse 12

⁷He had been a king before, a Pandya, the best of the Dravidas, known as Indradyumna, and given over wholly to the vow of Visnu. ⁸One day, at the hour of worship, holding himself in hand and holding a vow of silence, matted-haired, living hard, freshly bathed, in a hermitage on one of the great mountains, he was worshipping the Lord, Hari, the Unfallen. ⁹By chance a sage of great fame came there, ringed about by his crowds of pupils. Seeing him sitting apart at his worship, silent, offering no welcome or anything else, the sage grew angry. ¹⁰He gave him this curse: This man is no good man, evil in himself, of unmade understanding, a slighter of brahmins. Let him go today into blind darkness, his wits gone stiff, and be just what an elephant is.

¹¹Having cursed him so, king, the revered Agastya went away with his followers; and Indradyumna, that royal sage, taking to himself what had been laid down for him, ¹²came into an elephant's womb, which destroys the memory of oneself. Yet by the working of his worship of Hari, even in elephanthood the remembering was there.