An Index to the Names in the Mahabharata, with Short Explanations and a Concordance to the Bombay and Calcutta Editions and P. C. Roy's Translation c5.s1.435.3

c5.s1.435.3

*Bhīṣma* told the old story of the discourse between *Nahuṣa* and *Agastya* and *Bhṛgu* [i.e. *Nahuṣopākhyāna*] (β)(XIII, 99-100).—§ 756: Asked by *Yudhiṣṭhira* where those men who steal articles belonging to brahmans, *Bhīṣma* related the old conversation between a *Cāṇḍāla* and a *Kṣattriya* (*Kṣattrabandhoḥ*), who wondered that the old *Cāṇḍāla*, whose body was besmeared with the dust raised by dogs and asses, without minding that dust, was anxious to wash off the small drops of milk that had fallen upon his body; the *Cāṇḍāla* related that formerly some kine belonging to a brahman were stolen, and some milk from them fell upon some *Soma* plants that grew by the roadside; the king who performed the sacrifice with this *Soma*, the brahmans who drank its juice, those who had assisted at the sacrifice, and those who drank milk, etc., in the palace of this king, had to fall into hell, as also the sons and grandsons of those who had stolen them, and the queen, although she treated the animals with great care. The *Cāṇḍāla* himself, who had lived in the observance of *brahmacarya* in that place, and whose alms had been sprinkled with the milk of the kine, had in this life become a *Cāṇḍāla*. It is for this reason that the *Soma* plants become unsaleable, and the persons who sell and who purchase them both sink into the *Raurava*-hell, when they repair to the region of Yama, etc.