Puranic Encyclopaedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special Reference to the Epic and Puranic Literature c8.381

c8.381

2) Birth. Yuvanāśva, father of Māndhātṛ had a hundred wives. Still he had no children. Greatly griefstricken by the lack of a son he went to the forests to see people of virtue and piety. During his wandering in the forest he happened to reach a club of sages. Yuvanāśva went and sat in their midst. He was happy to be in their midst but was worried in his mind and so he sent up deep sighs as he sat there sad and silent. The sages asked him why he looked so sad and the King crying like a child told them the cause of his grief. The sages took pity on him and made him conduct the yāga ‘Indradaivata’. They brought a jug of water made potent by recitals of mantras to be given to the queens to make them pregnant and placed the pot in the yāgaśālā. The yāga was coming to an end. One day the King felt unusually thirsty and unwilling to disturb the sages who were taking rest the King entered the yāgaśālā and finding a jug there full of water drank from it and quenched his thirst, little knowing that it contained the water made potent for a specific purpose by mantras. The next day when the sages went to the yāgaśālā they found the jug almost empty and were worried and started making enquiries. The King then confessed what he had done. The sages said that it was futile to fight against fate and somehow finished the yāga and went to their āśramas.