Mārkaṇḍeya

Mārkaṇḍeya, son of Mṛkaṇḍa of the line of Bhṛgu, kept the vows of a student of the Veda for ages beyond counting, and by his austerity he overcame death. Desire and the dancers of heaven could not move him. Nara and Nārāyaṇa came to him and offered him any boon, and he asked only to see the Lord's māyā, the power by which the world takes what is real to be many things. Then the world drowned before his eyes, and after wandering in the flood he saw a child lying on a banyan leaf, and went into its body and saw the whole world there. The god Śiva and his wife, the goddess Umā, came to him and gave him freedom from age and death. He lived to sit in the forest with the Pāṇḍavas, the five princes of the Mahābhārata, and tell them the old stories.