Puranic Encyclopaedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special Reference to the Epic and Puranic Literature c4.3023

c4.3023

After some time Cirāyus crowned his son Jīvahara as the heir-apparent. Overjoyed Jīvahara ran to his mother Dhanaparā to give her the glad tidings. Dhanaparā told her son thus: “My child, why should you be so happy to think that you have become the heir-apparent. Several sons of your father had already become yuvarājas and died before becoming King. Your father has taken a medicine from Nāgārjuna and that will keep him eternally young. None of his sons can aspire to be the King. Your father is now eight hundred years old and will live long. Many of you will become yuvarājas but not the King. I will therefore suggest a way to tide over this difficulty. Everyday in the afternoon Nāgārjuna would come outside the palace and enquire whether anybody is in need of anything. At that time he would give whatever was asked for. It is an opportunity when you can ask for his head. When Nāgārjuna is dead your father would either die of grief or go to the forests. Then you can become the King.”