Ruru said: -
1. My wife, who was as dear to me as my life, was stung by a snake; on which f took, O snake, a fearful vow;
2. Namely that I would kill every snake that I might meet with. Therefore, I shall strike you and you shall be deprived of your life.
The Dunduva said: -
3. O Bramhana, there are other snakes which bite man. The Dunduvas are only snakes in name. Therefore, you should not kill the Dunduvas.
4. Subject to the same calamity, but not sharing the same good fortune, being same in woe, but different in joy, you should not kill the Dunduvas, for you cannot judge between right and wrong.
Souti said: -
5. Hearing those words of the snake, and seeing that the snake was realty of the Dunduva kind, and that it was terribly frightened, Ruru did not kill it.
6. Then Ruru, the possessor of six attributes, cheering up the snake, said to it, “Who are you, tell me, O snake, that have been thus metamorphosed?
The Dunduva said: -
7. O Ruru, I was formerly a Rishi. named Shahasrapata. It is by the curse of a Brahmana that I have become a snake.
8. Ruru said: O best of snakes, why were you cursed by an angry Brahmana? And how long will your body continue?
Thus ends the tenth chapter, Paulama, in the Adi Parva.