The Teller of Old Stories

So it was that when the Pāṇḍavas, the five sons of King Pāṇḍu, had lost their kingdom at dice and lived in exile in the Kāmyaka forest, a brahmin told them, Kṛṣṇa is coming here, and the long-lived Mārkaṇḍeya, rich in austerity and the study of the Veda, will soon come to you too. And after Kṛṣṇa, their kinsman and friend, had come with his queen Satyabhāmā, and comforted Draupadī, the Pāṇḍavas' wife, and spoken with Yudhiṣṭhira, the eldest of them, there appeared the sage Mārkaṇḍeya, grown great in austerity, who had lived many thousands of years. The brahmins and Kṛṣṇa and the Pāṇḍavas honoured him, and when he was seated and at ease, Kṛṣṇa said to him: The Pāṇḍavas and the brahmins gathered here, Draupadī and Satyabhāmā and I, want to hear your words. Tell us the holy stories of old, of kings and women and seers. Then the divine seer Nārada too came to see the Pāṇḍavas, and said to Mārkaṇḍeya, Tell the Pāṇḍavas what you meant to tell them. Give me a long hearing, said Mārkaṇḍeya, there is much to tell.

And he told them a great many of the old stories. Once Yudhiṣṭhira said to him, Great sage, you have seen the end of many thousands of ages, and there is no one equal to you in length of life except Brahmā himself. When the world is destroyed and nothing is left, you alone stand before Brahmā, and you alone see the creatures born again when he wakes. Tell us of it.

Mārkaṇḍeya bowed to the Self-born, the ancient, eternal and imperishable Person, and said that Kṛṣṇa, sitting there among them in his yellow robe, was that Person, the maker and unmaker of all. Then he told them of the four ages, how a thousand rounds of them make a day of Brahmā, and how at the end of the ages truth and dharma fail among men, until drought and seven blazing suns and the fire of the end burn up the world, and the clouds of the end rain for twelve years, and the sea breaks over its shore, and the mountains and the earth are broken apart.

Later he told them how Rāma, the prince of Ayodhyā, lost his kingdom and his wife Sītā and won her back, and how the princess Sāvitrī followed Yama, the god of death, and won back her husband's life.