Verse 33

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What her curse cost him· Verses 33–40

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So she spoke, pitiful in her speaking, and wailed like one with nobody to protect her; and Saudasa, dazed by the curse, ate him as a tiger eats a beast. The brahmin's wife, seeing the husband she had chosen eaten by the man-eater, grieving for herself, in her anger cursed the lord of the earth. Since you have eaten my husband, wicked man, while I ached with desire, your own death too is shown to you, dull-witted one: it will come in the placing of your seed. Having cursed Mitrasaha so, and set on the world her husband had gone to, she threw his bones into the kindled fire and went the way he had gone. Free of the curse at the end of twelve years, he made ready to lie with his queen; but she told him of the brahmin woman's curse and held him back.

From then on he gave up the pleasure of women, and by that act he had no child of his own. Vasistha, with his leave, set a child in Madayanti. She carried the child seven years and did not give birth. Her belly was struck with a stone, and for that the boy is called Asmaka, the one of the stone. From Asmaka was born Mulaka, who was kept safe by women standing round him and was called Armoured in Women. When the kshatriyas had been destroyed he was the root the line grew from.