Puranic Encyclopaedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special Reference to the Epic and Puranic Literature c8.1806

c8.1806

Devaśarmā on hearing the story of Yajñasenā became pensive. After five or six days Yajñasenā delivered a son. Days went by and one morning Yajñasenā went for her bath in the river nearby entrusting the child to the care of her husband. Some moments later a messenger from the palace asking him to go over there. The brahmin was in a fix. There was nobody around to whose care he could leave the child. He had a mongoose. The brahmin asked the mongoose to look after the child and went to the palace. Some time later a big cobra came creeping towards the child. The mongoose jumped at it and killed it. The mongoose was smeared with blood after that. The brahmin returned hurriedly from the palace only to see the blood-smeared mongoose waiting at the doorstep. Thinking that the mongoose must have killed his son the brahmin thrashed the poor mongoose to death. But on entering the room the brahmin found out his mistake, for there near the child was the dead body of a deadly cobra. The brahmin regretted his foolish act of doing a deed before knowing things well, when Yajñasenā came back after her bath and was