Janamejaya said: -
1. What did Dharma (the god of justice) for which he was cursed? Who was the Brahmana Rishi, for whose curse the god had to be born in the womb of Sudra woman?
Vaishampayana said: -
2. There was a certain Brahmana, who was known as Mandavya. He was learned in all the precepts of virtue; he was devoted to truth and asceticism.
3. The great ascetic sat at the entrance of his hermitage, as a great Yogee with his arms upraised in the observance of the vow of silence.
4. As he passed years together (in that state), one day (some) robbers came to his hermitage with stolen properties.
5-6. O best of the Bharata race, they were pursued by many guards-men. O best of the Kuru race, the thieves, entering that hermitage, hid their booty there. Before the force (guardsmen) came up, they too hid themselves in fear. But as soon as they had concealed themselves, the guards in pursuit came to the spot.
7. O king, the pursuers of the thieves saw the ascetic sitting in that state; and they asked him.
8. “O excellent Brahmana, which way the thieves have gone? O Brahmana, point them to us, so that we may follow them without loss of time.”
9. O king, having been thus addressed by the guards, the ascetic did not say a word in reply, -good or bad.
10. Thereupon, the officers of the king, in searching that hermitage, found the thieves with the stolen properties concealed there.
11. The suspicion of the guards fell upon the Rishi; they seized him with the thieves and brought him before the king.
12. The king sentenced him along with the thieves. The guards, acting in ignorance, put the great Rishi also on the Sula (an instrument of death).
13. Having put them (the thieves) and the Rishi on an iron-spit, they returned to the king with the stolen property they had recovered.
14. Though the virtuous-minded Brahmana Rishi remained for many years on the Sula without food, yet he did not die.
15. The illustrious man, who was in deep Tapa, at the point of the Sula, kept up his life and brought other Rishis there by his ascetic power.
16. O descendant of the Bharata race, they came in the night in the forms of birds; and seeing him engaged in Tapa (ascetic meditation), though fixed on the Sula, they were extremely aggrieved.
17. Having shown themselves in their own forms, they asked that excellent Brahmana: “O Brahmana, we desire to hear what is your sin for which you suffer this torture of being placed at the point of the Sula.”
Thus ends the hundred and seventh chapter, the history of Animandavya, in the Sambhava of the Adi Parva.